LNG

Italian energy company Eni has explained the strategy behind its agreed acquisition for $4.9 billion of UK-based Neptune Energy, which is controlled by equity funds and owns key global LNG stakes and gas field assets in Algeria, Indonesia, Norway, the UK, the Netherlands and Australia.

Norway's Equinor plans to restart production at the Hammerfest liquefaction and export plant in northern Norway on June 8 after it was shut down on May 31 due to a gas leak.

Norwegian energy company Equinor said plans have been agreed to invest $1.33 billion in upgrading the Hammerfest LNG plant, Western Europe’s only baseload export facility, and to extend its lifespan towards 2050.

Leading European pipeline natural gas and LNG supplier Equinor of Norway said record high production levels continued in the third quarter as Europe received 11 percent more gas from the Norwegian Continental Shelf and profits rose from trading gas and power at higher prices.

Norway’s oil and gas company Equinor and partners in a block Norwegian Sea have decided to invest almost US$1 billion to bring six new natural gas fields on stream as the LNG export plant at Hammerfest in Northern Norway also started up again.

Equinor confirmed that the Hammerfest LNG plant was resuming production in mid-May and would be part of the Norwegian company’s new planned natural gas production surge for Europe.

Norwegian energy company Equinor, whose Hammerfest LNG plant comes back on stream in mid-May 2022, said “unprecedented” European natural gas prices in the second half resulted in record high annual and fourth-quarter adjusted earnings after gas output was boosted.

Gassco, the Norwegian natural gas pipeline operator and one of the main competitors to LNG in Europe, said it transported record gas volumes to Germany in 2020.
The company said pipeline gas from the Norwegian Continental Shelf (NCS) played an important role in Europe’s energy supply.

Equinor, the operator of the Hammerfest LNG export plant on Melkoya Island in Northern Norway, said the facility would remain shut until September 23 after a gas leak.

Emergency services were sent to the plant on September 13 after an alarm was sounded during preparations to restart the plant after maintenance.

Feed-gas for the single-Train Hammerfest liquefaction facility comes from the Snohvit gas field in the Barents Sea.

Hammerfest exported 4.72 million tonnes of LNG in 2019 compared with 5.17MT in the previous year.

Most of the volumes were delivered to European destinations like France, Spain, the Netherlands and Lithuania.

The Norwegian facility also exported small quantities last year to Asian nations such as China and India.

Hammerfest had been scheduled to restart on September 13 after a short shutdown due to an outage.

Equinor had given no previous reason for the original shutdown.

Europe’s only large-scale LNG plant has a capacity to process 18 million cubic metres of gas per day.

Most feed-gas for Hammerfest comes from a total of 20 wells in the Snohvit and Albatross fields.

This output is transported to land through a 143-kilometre pipeline

A previous scheduled maintenance saw Hammerfest reopen on June 18 after several weeks of shutdown.

Equinor has 37 percent of the Snohvit field and the LNG plant and the other partners include French major Total and Germany’s Wintershall Dea.

Equinor, Europe’s second-largest natural gas supplier after Russian company Gazprom, has received approval from the government to reduce gas production at one of its key fields amid surplus pipeline gas and LNG supplies in Europe and near record production in the Norwegian Continental Shelf.