Hammerfest LNG relaunch delayed by one week
Equinor's Hammerfest LNG will restart its production schedule a week later than anticipated to replace a faulty compressor in the 4.2mn metric tons/year export facility, Equinor said May 15.
Hammerfest LNG is now due to reopen on May 23, instead of May 17 as had been anticipated. A large fire struck the production facility in September 2020, resulting in its closure. This is not the first time Hammerfest LNG's restart has been delayed - it was originally supposed to reopen last autumn.
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Grete Haaland, Equinor senior vice president for onshore facilities, said: "Hammerfest LNG has been prepared for production, but we are taking the extra time necessary to safely resume operations."
The difficulties at Hammerfest LNG have reduced LNG availability on the European gas market, where supplies have become further limited due to the fallout from the Ukraine war. Hammerfest LNG receives gas feedstock from Equinor's Snohvit field in the Barents Sea.
Despite the Hammerfest LNG outages, Equinor managed to expand gas sales to Europe by 10% in the first quarter, while increasing gas output by 2% yr/yr to 1.06mn barrels of oil equivalent/day. Equinor increased gas output at several key fields, including Troll, Oseberg and Heidrun, having secured permission from Norwegian energy authorities. At Hammerfest LNG, Equinor operates the facility in partnership with Petoro, TotalEnergies, Neptune Energy and Wintershall Dea.