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.
Hammerfest LNG plant in northern Norway expected to re-start on June 8 after gas leak fixed and facility checked
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.
Equinor says gas leak stopped at Hammerfest LNG plant but facility has temporarily halted production
Equinor, the operator of the Hammerfest LNG export plant in northern Norway, said that a gas leak occurred at the facility on Melkøya Island on May 31 and had been stopped, though it was too early to say when production would resume.
“Equinor’s emergency response organisation has been demobilised and the emergency services have left Melkøya,” said Equinor.
“The leak occurred in connection with a valve in one of the plant’s cooling circuits,” Equinor explained.
“The gas that leaked is used for cooling during production of LNG,” the company added.
Equinor’s emergency response organisation was immediately mobilised to face the incident and it was handled in collaboration with emergency services.
“Relevant authorities were notified. There were 98 people present at the plant when the incident occurred. All personnel are accounted for and no injuries were reported,” stated Equinor.
“It is too soon to say when production at the plant can be resumed,” Equinor added.
Fire recovery
A fire had previously occurred at the Hammerfest plant on September 28 in 2020 and led to a prolonged closure for repairs until mid-2022.
No one was hurt in the 2020 fire and much of the damage to the plant was caused by the sustained use of high-powered hoses to suppress the fire and stop it re-igniting.
Equinor concluded shortly afterwards that a fire had started in the filter housing of a gas turbine generator.
The fire investigation noted that the cause of the fire was spontaneous ignition in the filters in the turbine’s air inlets, caused by excessively high temperatures over a long period of time.
Feed-gas for the single-Train Hammerfest liquefaction facility comes from the Snøhvit gas field in the Barents Sea.
Hammerfest exports around 4.70 million tonnes of LNG 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 (89-mile) pipeline.
Equinor has 37 percent of the Snøhvit field and the LNG plant and the other large partners include French major TotalEnergies and Germany’s Wintershall Dea.
Norway's Equinor plans upgrade of Hammerfest LNG to boost plant efficiency and lifespan as well as jobs
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.
Norway’s Equinor boosts feed gas for Hammerfest LNG plant and sees production lasting for decades
Equinor, the Norwegian oil and gas company, is boosting the feed-gas supplies from another field in the Barents Sea to produce more LNG from the Hammerfest plant on Melkøya Island in northern Norway.
Cargo from repaired Hammerfest plant re-establishes Norway’s seaborne European LNG supply link
The first cargo to leave the Hammerfest liquefaction and export plant in northern Norway since the September 2020 fire is on its way to re-connecting the Norwegian seaborne gas supply chain for the European Union.
