Norway’s Equinor said it had pushed back the restart of production at its 4.3 mtpa Hammerfest LNG export plant on the island of Melkoya to June 14 due to technical issues.
The firm closed the facility on May 31 after a gas leak occurred in connection with a valve in one of the plant’s cooling circuits.
Equinor confirmed on Tuesday that it planed to restart production on June 7. However, data by Gassco showed on Wednesday that the restart was moved to June 14.
“During the preparations for start-up, we have had some technical issues that have now been solved. These were not connected to last week’s incident,” a spokesperson for Equinor told LNG Prime.
“To carry on with the start-up, we need a component to be delivered. This will take some days and the start-up dates has therefor been moved,” the spokesperson said.
Equinor also recently loaded the 155,000-cbm Arctic Aurora during the production shut down from the facility’s LNG tanks.
According to its AIS data provided by VesselsValue, the 2013-built LNG carrier, owned by Dynagas LNG Partners and chartered by Equinor, was on Wednesday anchored near the Hammerfest LNG facility.
The LNG plant liquefies natural gas coming from the Snohvit field in the Barents Sea.
Gas reaches Hammerfest LNG via a 160-kilometer gas pipeline which became operational in the autumn of 2007.
Equinor is the operator of both the Snohvit field and Hammerfest LNG with a 36.8 percent stake.
Other license owners of Snohvit are Petoro (30 percent), TotalEnergies EP Norge (18.4 percent), Neptune Energy Norge (12 percent), and Wintershall Dea Norge (2.81 percent).
