LNG

Norwegian major Equinor and its partners in the Snøhvit Future project and Hammerfest LNG have awarded a construction and installation contract to domestic company Leonhard Nilsen & Sønner.

The project partners of Equinor are Norway’s Petoro, Fance’s TotalEnergies, UK-listed Neptune Energy and Germany’s Wintershall Dea.

The Snøhvit Future project includes onshore compression and electrification of the Hammerfest LNG export plant.

The regulators postponed the start of electrification by two years until 2030 compared with the original schedule and in the interim the plant will continue to run on gas turbines.

The gas turbines will also be maintained for back-up power from 2030 to 2033.

Exports

Hammerfest exports around 4.70 million tonnes of LNG per annum and most of the volumes are delivered to European destinations like France, Spain, the Netherlands and Lithuania.

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

This output is transported to land through a 143-kilometre (90-mile) pipeline and the plant processes around 18.4 million cubic metres (mcm) of natural gas per day.

The Leonhard Nilsen company is headquartered in Andøy in Norway’s Nordland county and the work is worth 1.5 billion Norwegian crowns ($143 million) and will generate local spin-offs for other areas including Finnmark and Troms.

“We are pleased to award this contract to a company in Northern Norway. For Equinor, it has been important that the Snøhvit Future project should create ripple effects throughout the region,” said Trond Bokn, Equinor’s Senior Vice President for Project Development.

Reliable supplier

“The Snøhvit Future project will strengthen Norway’s position as a reliable long-term supplier of gas produced with very low greenhouse gas emissions,” Bokn added.

The project will secure jobs in the North of Norway and guarantee energy supply to Europe through 2050.

Three large modules will be installed at the Hammerfest plant including a compressor, a substation and electric steam boilers.

“Extensive modification work will also be carried out. In addition, there will be a lot of activity around Hammerfest, including the construction of a tunnel and transformer substation allowing power to be transmitted from Hyggevatn to Melkøya,” Equinor explained.

Hammerfest LNG is a key company in the region with approximately 350 permanent employees, plus about 150 contractors and apprentices.

The LNG plant also pays 170 million crowns in property taxes annually to the Hammerfest municipality.

As specialists in tunnelling, the Leonhard Nilsen company has delivered several large-scale projects both in Norway and abroad, and construction work will start once the necessary approvals and permits have been received. This is the company’s first assignment for Equinor.

“They submitted the best bid overall, and we look forward to working with a new supplier in the region. Leonhard Nilsen also has a number of sub-suppliers, including Viggo Eriksen in Hammerfest, Alta Anlegg and Hörmann Norway in Tromsø,” said Mette H. Ottøy, Equinor’s Chief Procurement Officer.

Norway’s national energy company Equinor, a main pipeline natural gas and LNG supplier to Europe as well as being a prominent trader, made total tax contributions of over $49 billion in the last tax year, including $1Bln in environmental taxes under the EU Emissions Trading System, as prices surged following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Equinor said it focused on securing safe and reliable delivery of energy and became the largest provider of natural gas to Europe as supplies from Russian supplier Gazprom virtually ended.

“Equinor is dedicated to contributing to progress for the societies where we operate, and paying tax where value is created is an important part of this,” said Equinor Chief Financial Officer Torgrim Reitan.

Special year

“It was also a special year in 2022 in the energy markets with high and volatile prices, followed by substantial tax contributions,” Reitan added.

Equinor group companies contributed with tax, host government entitlements, royalties and fee payments totalling $49.2Bln. Of this, $44.3Bln was paid to Norway, where Equinor has the largest operations.

The company explained that financial results in 2022 were strengthened by the higher prices across energy markets compared with 2021 and with particularly high prices and higher production of gas to Europe.

“Tax payments from Equinor provides governments and authorities with opportunities to increase welfare and strengthen their societies,” said Equinor.

Governance

The Tax Contribution Report provides information about the corporate income tax Equinor paid in countries and locations where it does business.

“The report discloses Equinor’s approach to tax and tax strategy, compliance, and governance,” it added.

Equinor also emphasized that it supported policies promoting the goals of the Paris Agreement and backed a price on carbon emissions as a measure to drive emissions reductions.

“The CO2 tax in Norway has promoted development of technology and solutions to produce oil and gas with lower emissions from operations on the Norwegian Continental Shelf,” said CFO Reitan.

In 2022, Equinor said it paid $1.1 billion in environmental taxes and fees, including carbon quotas within the EU Emissions Trading System.

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.

Norwegian energy company Equinor has delayed the re-start of the Hammerfest LNG export plant in northern Norway by six weeks to mid-May 2022 as repair work continues after the 2020 fire at the facility.

Norwegian Minister of Petroleum and Energy Marte Mjøs Persen has formally opened the Martin Ling oil and natural gas field in the North Sea and because of high commodity prices full development costs of $7 billion project will be fully recovered in just over a year.

Equinor, the Norwegian LNG production plant owner and pipeline natural gas supplier to the European Union and the UK, has entered into an agreement with Canada’s Vermilion Energy to sell its non-operated stake in the Corrib natural gas project in Ireland.

The Corrib field started production in 2015 and is located 83 kilometres (51 miles) off Ireland’s northwest coast in water depths of almost 350 metres.

The equity gas volumes to Equinor for 2021 are estimated at 58 million standard cubic feet per day.

Equinor and Vermilion have agreed a consideration of US$434 million, before closing adjustment, with an effective date set at 1 January 2022.

The transaction is organised through a share sale of Equinor’s 36.5 percent of the Corrib project, alongside Vermilion, the operator with 20 percent, and Dublin-based Nephin Energy with 43.5 percent.

Hedging

As part of the transaction, Equinor and Vermilion have agreed to hedge approximately 70 percent of the production for 2022 and 2023, and have also agreed a contingent payment that will be paid on a portion of the revenue if European gas prices exceed a given floor level.

“The Corrib field has been an important non-operated project for Equinor for several years,” said Arne Gürtner, Equinor senior vice president responsible for the United Kingdom and Ireland.

“We have taken the decision to sell the asset to focus our portfolio, in line with our strategy, to capture value from the current strong market and to free up capital that we can re-invest elsewhere,” added Gürtner.

The deal is subject to approval by partners, the Irish government and regulatory bodies.

The sale of Corrib means that Equinor will no longer have active business presence in Ireland, after also deciding to withdraw from an early phase offshore wind project in the country.

Equinor’s Hammerfest LNG plant on Melkoya island in northern Norway is currently closed after a fire occurred on September 28 last year.

The facility, which supplies European LNG terminals, is expected to re-open after repairs in the first quarter of 2022.

Norwegian oil and gas company Equinor, the leading producer and exporter of West European pipeline natural gas and LNG, has brought on stream the third stage of the Troll gas field, extending the production lifespan beyond 2050.

Norway, the main West European supplier of long-term pipeline natural gas directly to Germany, France Belgium and the UK, said seven companies had applied for production licences in the 25th licensing round on the Norwegian shelf with any gas finds providing more competition to LNG cargoes from outside the region.

“The numbered rounds are focused on key parts in our least explored, open areas,” said Tina Bru, the Norwegian Minister of Petroleum and Energy.

“They are an important supplement to the APA (awards in pre-defined areas) rounds as exploration activity in immature areas gives the state as a resource owner more knowledge about the resource potential,” explained Bru.

“It enables us to identify resources and create value for the community. We will now start processing the applications from the seven companies,” she stated.

Norway, while being the main pipeline natural gas supplier to Europe, along with Russia’s Gazprom, is in competition to LNG deliveries from nations such as Qatar, the US, Nigeria, Algeria and Trinidad and Tobago, as well as Russia.

The Norwegians are also the only large-scale producers of LNG in Western Europe from the Hammerfest LNG plant, which has been closed until the third quarter of 2021 because of ongoing repairs from a fire in September 2020.

Damage caused by the fire at the LNG facility will take until around October 2021 to repair.

The fire, in which no one was killed nor injured, suffered its main damage from large amounts of seawater from the extinguishing process downing auxiliary systems such as electrical equipment and cables.

Feed-gas for the single-Train Hammerfest liquefaction facility, which exports around 5 million tonnes per annum of LNG, comes from the Snohvit gas field in the Barents Sea.

The 25th licensing round comprises nine areas outside the APA area on the Norwegian shelf.

The round was announced on the 19th of November 2020 and includes one area in the Norwegian Sea and eight in the Barents Sea.

The companies that have applied for production licences are: Norske Shell; Equinor Energy; Idemitsu Petroleum Norge; Ineos E&P Norge ; Lundin Norway AS; OMV (Norge) and Var Energi AS.

Norway also allocates exploration areas on the Norwegian Continental Shelf and these take place annually through two equal licensing rounds.

These rounds include areas in the most famous exploration areas. As exploration activity has been going on for several decades, the most well-known exploration areas now include most of the North Sea and the Norwegian Sea and a large part of the Barents Sea to the south.

The Ministry in January 2021 awarded 61 upstream licences in pre-defined areas of the NCS to 30 licensees, including prominent LNG players such as BP, Shell, Total and Eni of Italy, as well as ConocoPhillips, the only bidder among US majors.

Equinor, the Norwegian energy company whose pipeline natural gas competes with LNG in Europe, swung to a first-quarter net loss of $710 million as it took a $2.45 billion hit for impairment charges in response to the Covid-19 pandemic and the oil price wipe out.