LNG

Equinor, the operator of the LNG export plant on Melkoya Island in Northern Norway, said that the facility would not be re-starting until early 2021 after a fire described as a very serious incident that had disturbed local residents in the nearby town of Hammerfest.

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.

GRTgaz, the French natural gas network operator and owner of LNG import terminals, said there had been a “massive” return of the fuel to Europe and France in the past year as it revealed plans to move LNG by rail to increase availability in Eastern France.