# NCS Live

> Live map of the Norwegian Continental Shelf: every in-service oil and gas
> installation, subsea structure, pipeline and field outline, with real-time
> vessel traffic (AIS), offshore helicopter flights, power-supply status and
> estimated pipeline flows, drawn over bathymetric seabed relief.

NCS Live (https://ncslive.no) is a free, single-page live visualisation built
and designed by Smpl / Melvær&Co in Norway.

## What the map shows

- ~160 surface installations and ~525 subsea structures from the Norwegian
  Offshore Directorate (Sokkeldirektoratet) FactPages, with type, operator,
  water depth, field and startup date.
- The offshore pipeline network (gas, oil, condensate and CO₂ injection).
  Line thickness reflects estimated throughput, derived from SODIR monthly
  field production accumulated through the pipeline graph, not pipe diameter.
- Cross-border export legs beyond SODIR's mandate, curated and labelled as
  such: the FLAGS and SAGE trunks carrying Norwegian gas to St Fergus in
  Scotland, and Baltic Pipe from Europipe II to Nybro in Denmark.
- Live vessel traffic from BarentsWatch / Kystverket AIS: tankers and offshore
  support vessels, with speed, course and destination.
- Offshore helicopter sorties, dead-reckoned from Avinor flight data between
  heliports and installations. Positions are estimates, not surveillance.
- Field partners (licence owners) with exact shares, and per-field
  production volumes (SODIR monthly, 3-month mean), shown per installation.
- Power supply per installation: shore power cables, offshore wind (Hywind
  Tampen), complex power hubs (e.g. Ekofisk J) and conventional gas turbines.
- A time machine: a year slider (1971 to today) replays the shelf's
  build-out: installations and pipelines appear in their in-service year,
  with total production and producing-field counts per year.
- A value-creation layer (default off): live-ticking counters over each
  producing field showing the kroner its output represents so far today.
  SODIR volumes per stream are priced at Norway's realized export prices,
  derived from SSB export value divided by quantity, so no benchmark or
  assumed price is involved. Indicative gross, before transport and tax.
- Seismic survey activity: ongoing, planned and paused acquisition areas
  (SODIR), with type, company and window, as a default-off legend layer.
- Cold-water coral (default off): 1,774 observed Lophelia reef points from
  Havforskningsinstituttet / MAREANO, with depth, observation method and
  date, plus Fiskeridirektoratet's 18 areas closed to bottom-towed fishing
  gear to protect them.
- Wind and sea state (both default off): a forecast field over the whole
  basin - wind speed and direction as a colour wash with animated streaks,
  significant wave height as animated crest lines, plus readouts showing wind
  barbs with speed in m/s and wave height in metres. This is a forecast for
  the current hour, not an observation, and the map labels it as such.
- Seabed relief and depth contours derived from open bathymetry (ETOPO via
  AWS Terrarium tiles), simplified and served statically. Land is masked by
  coastline rather than elevation, so ground below sea level (the
  Netherlands, Danish polders) is drawn as land and not as seabed.

## Data sources and licences

- Sokkeldirektoratet FactPages (NLOD licence): installations, pipelines,
  fields, production. Attribution: "Kilde: Sokkeldirektoratet".
- BarentsWatch AIS (Kystverket): vessel positions.
- Avinor: helicopter flight data.
- Havforskningsinstituttet / MAREANO: coral reef observations.
- Fiskeridirektoratet: coral protection areas.
- SSB (utenrikshandel): realized export prices for the value layer.
- Open-Meteo (CC-BY 4.0): wind and wave forecasts.
- Basemap tiles © OpenStreetMap contributors, © CARTO.

## Pages

- https://ncslive.no — the live map (English).
- https://ncslive.no/no — the same map, in Norwegian.
- https://ncslive.no/fields and /felt — every producing field, ranked by
  output, with current production, operator and installations.
- https://ncslive.no/fields/<field> and /felt/<field> — one page per producing
  field: monthly production, share of the shelf, twelve-month trend, peak
  month, operator, licence partners with exact shares, in-service surface
  installations with their start years, and the count of subsea structures.
- https://ncslive.no/about and /om — what the map is, what it is not (it is
  not a digital twin), who built it, and every data source.

## Citing this

Cite as: NCS Live (https://ncslive.no), by Smpl / Melvær&Co, using open data
from Sokkeldirektoratet, BarentsWatch/Kystverket, Avinor, SSB,
Havforskningsinstituttet/MAREANO and Fiskeridirektoratet. Figures shown are
as published by those sources; pipeline throughput, helicopter positions and
the value counter are derived estimates and are described as such on the map.

Flow animations and cable routes are schematic. Helicopter positions are
dead-reckoned estimates. Not for navigation or operational use.