Stop in production at Statoil's LNG plant
Statoil’s LNG plant at Melkøya, Northern Norway, has been down since December 20, causing the company to lose some NOK 200-300 million per week. The company hopes to have the plant running again within the end of January.
With the LNG plant out of service Statoil stopped producing gas at its offshore Snøhvit field outside the coast of Finnmark. Gas normally flows 143 km by pipe to the Hammerfest plant, where it is compressed to liquid form for ship transport.
Statoil only recently found the cause of the production stop - a leakage in one of 1600 pipes in a cooling system, NRK reports. The company hopes to have the plant running again in the second half of January.
Statoil does not want to comment on NRK’s estimates that the company is losing between NOK 200 and 300 million (€25,6-38,5 million) per week while the plant at Melkøya stands idle. The Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry estimates the export value of the Snøhvit gas to amount to NOK 12-14 billion in 2010.
Just before Christmas LNG vessel number 100 left the Melkøya LNG plant loaded with natural gas from the Snøhvit gas field.
The facility was also down for repairs between August and December 2009, and had frequent start-up problems after entering service in September 2007.
The Snøhvit project has created nearly 400 workplaces in the Arctic town of Hammerfest, 160 of these at the LNG plant.
