Government reshuffle puts electrification of Hammerfest LNG in jeopardy
Plans to substitute power at Equinor’s Barents Sea plant from the gas turbines currently in use with renewable electricity from the grid can be stopped as the exiting Center Party forms a tiny majority for alternative solutions in the Parliament.
The same day as Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre presents his new Labor Party government on Tuesday, the Parliament restarts a debate on the fate of Hammerfest LNG.
It was in 2023, Støre’s centre-left government decided for major investments in renewables in the country’s northernmost Finnmark region aimed to provide Hammerfest LNG with green energy instead of its current mega-polluting gas-driven turbines.
The LNG plant is Europe’s northernmost, but at the same time Norway’s biggest emitter of CO2. Electrification by 2030 would thus help cut the climate gas emission by 850,000 tons annually. That corresponds to around two percent of Norway's emissions.
Part of the new 3,6 TWh annual power would come from wind farms to be built along the coast of Finnmark.
Few country’s in Europe has seen a stronger opposition against wind mills than Norway, with the opponents arguing such parks will degrade vulnerable nature and challenge the Sami indigenous peoples' reindeer husbandry.
Although petroleum major Equinor and partners already have invested five billion kroner (€425 million) into the new energy plan, the turnaround by the Center Party now forms a majority in the Storting (parliament) to stop the project.
"We hope to get a majority to stop the electrification in its current form,” said leader of the Center Party and former Minister of Finance, Trygve Slagsvold Vedum, to broadcaster NRK.
There are different options up for the political rematch in the Storting on Tuesday. The Green Party says it will propose to close Hammerfest LNG entirely.
The Socialist Left Party has announced it will propose an alternative to build a gass power plant with carbon capture, instead of the current wind mills farms.
"The electrification of Melkøya as planned by the government will lead to a gigantic destruction of Finnmark's nature and be enormously destructive to reindeer herding," said MP Lars Haltbrekken to news agency NTB.
A gas power plant with carbon capture solution to run operation could reduce Hammerfest LNG's carbon footprint by injecting the CO2 into the seabed instead of filling the atmosphere with more climate gases.
Also the Red Party and the Progress Party have announced they are ready to vote for an end to the current electrification plans. A call for alternative solutions have additionally been raised by the Liberal Party, the Christian Democrats and single-MP list Pasientfokus. Together, these parties have 85 seats in parliament, while 84 (Labor and Conservative) support the ongoing electrification regime.
President of the Norwegian Sami Parliament, Silje Karine Muotka has previously said in a statement that the government's decision is "completely unacceptable" in its current form.
"It show that the government ignores its promises to take Sámi interests into account, and a promised strengthened dialogue with the Sámi Parliament appears to be only empty words," Muotka said.
In the three years since Russia’s barbaric full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Hammerfest LNG has become more important as supplier of gas to Europe.
Equinor’s upgrade plan with electrification includes extended production beyond 2030, a move the government argues will secure jobs in Hammerfest and energy supplies to Europe.
The upgrade is estimated to cost 13,2 billion kroner (€1,1 billion) of which contracts for billions are already signed. For Finnmark region, new power and expanded energy grid could bring rippling effects beyond the Hammerfest area.
Støre's government will in parliament argue that putting an end to the electrification is irresponsible, counterproductive for climate, and bad for business development aimed to create jobs for Norway's northern population.
