STAVANGER, Norway, Nov 16 (Reuters) - Royal Dutch Shell Norway upstream vice president Rich Denny told Reuterson Wednesday:
** Shell plans to start testing new booster compressors atits Nyhamna gas processing plant in Norway next year
** "I can't give you the exact date but the project is ontrack for starting up in 2017... It's somewhere near the middleof the year."
** Says Shell plans to hand operatorship of Nyhamna plant toNorway's offshore gas system operator Gassco around the middleof 2017
** Says operatorship handover will not affect ownershipstructure of Shell-operated Ormen Lange field, but can impactownership of the Nyhamna plant
** "The infrastructure will become part of a new jointventure and the ownership in that is still to be decided. That'sfor the (Oil and Energy) ministry to decide."
** Shell's partners in Ormen Lange field and Nyhamna plantinclude Statoil, ExxonMobil, DONG Energy and Norway's state-owned Petoro
** Nyhamna is expected to start processing gas fromStatoil-operated Aasta Hansteen field in 2018 (Reporting by Stine Jacobsen, editing by Nerijus Adomaitis)