Norway’s Equinor outlines plans for more European natural gas supplies from NCS existing infrastructure
Equinor, the Norwegian energy major, LNG plant owner and pipeline natural gas supplier to Europe, is increasing gas output on the Norwegian Continental Shelf with a gas field joint venture.
Norway’s Equinor and partners award contract for electrification work at Hammerfest LNG plant to local company
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.
LNG and pipeline gas provider Equinor pulls plug on wind project tied to oil and gas fields as not viable
Equinor, the European LNG producer from the Hammerfest plant in northern Norway and a leading pipeline gas supplier to the European Union and the UK, said it was postponing indefinitely a large offshore wind project called Trollvind citing issues such as rising costs and technology availability.
Norwegian parliament blocks Hammerfest LNG electrification to cut emissions and prefers carbon capture
The Norwegian parliament, the Storting, has ordered the government to consider an alternative way to cut carbon emissions at Western Europe's largest liquefied natural gas export plant at Hammerfest and to consider the use of carbon capture instead of electrification.
Wintershall Dea advances with $825M development of Dvalin North gas field to supply EU from Norwegian Sea
Wintershall Dea, the company viewed as Germany’s national oil and gas player and which is a shareholder in the Norwegian-run Hammerfest LNG export project, has submitted a plan for development of the Dvalin North gas field in the Norwegian Sea to help boost pipelines gas supplies for Europe.
Equinor plans to boost natural gas supplies to the UK and EU from Irpa field in the Norwegian Sea
Equinor, the leading European pipeline natural gas and LNG supplier from the Norwegian Continental Shelf, has submitted a plan of development for a gas field to boost supplies to the UK and the European Union.
Equinor said its plan had gone to the Norwegian Minister for Petroleum and Energy for the Irpa gas discovery, formerly known as the Asterix field.
The Irpa gas field is in the Vøring Basin in the Norwegian Sea, located about 80 kilometres west of the world’s largest spar platform, the Aasta Hansteen platform, and 340km west of Bodø in Norway’s Nordland county just north of the Arctic Circle.
Equinor, which owns 51 percent of the field, explained that the discovery was proven way back in 2009 and contains 19.3 billion standard cubic metres of natural gas
The company’s partners in the venture include the Norwegian state firm Petoro, Shell plc and Germany’s Wintershall DEA.
“The Irpa discovery will be developed with three wells and an 80-km long tie-back pipeline to Aasta Hansteen in water depths of 1,350 metres,” explained Equinor.
Cost
The Norwegian company and the other shareholders intend to spend 14.8 billion Norwegian crowns ($1.44Bln) to bring the field on stream in the fourth quarter of 2026.
Equinor said that there would be joint production from Irpa and Aasta Hansteen through 2031 and then the Irpa field would continue to produce until 2039.
“This is a good day and the development of Irpa will contribute to predictable and long-term deliveries of gas to customers in the European Union and the UK,” declared Geir Tungesvik, Equinor’s executive vice president for Projects, Drilling and Procurement.
The company explained that the gas will be phased into existing infrastructure over Aasta Hansteen and transported to the Nyhamna gas processing plant via Polarled.
From there, gas will be transported via the Langeled pipeline system to customers in the UK and continental Europe.
“The development shows that near-field exploration and utilisation of existing infrastructure provides good resource utilisation on the NCS,” said Grete Birgitte Haaland, senior vice president for Exploration and Production North at Equinor.
“Irpa will maintain existing jobs at Aasta Hansteen, at the supply base in Sandnessjøen, at the helicopter base in Brønnøysund and at the operations centre in Harstad,” she stated.
Equinor reveals plan for $1Bln spend on six new gas fields in Norwegian Sea as Hammerfest LNG restarts
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.
