Norway’s Equinor plans to restart production at the Hammerfest LNG plant on 8 June, following a forced a stoppage at the liquefied natural gas facility on Wednesday, according to a company spokesperson.
The plant in northern Norway, which receives and processes gas from the Snohvit field in the Barents Sea, was forced to halt production on Wednesday following a gas leak at the facility.
About 100 people were present at the plant when the incident occured. No injuries were reported.
“Production is still stopped and we have issued a notification to the market… that we plan to start production on 8 June,” said a company spokesperson.
The spokesperson added that since the incident, Equinor as “worked systematically to get an overview of the situation and are establishing a plan for a safe restart”.
The Norwegian Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) quickly launched an investigation into the gas leak, a spokesperson for the regulator confirmed on Thursday.
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“The main aim of our investigation is to find the causes of the incident and any lessons learned, and to share this information with the industry,” the PSA spokesperson told Upstream.
Equinor said Wednesday’s leak occurred in connection with a valve in one of the plant’s cooling circuits. The gas that leaked is used for cooling during production of LNG.
During normal production, Hammerfest LNG delivers around 6.5 billion cubic metres per annum of gas, equivalent to the annual gas demand of 6.5 million European households.
According to a previous Equinor statement, gas volumes from the Hammerfest LNG plant account for about 5% of Norway’s gas exports to Europe.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Norway has become the biggest gas supplier to Europe, with exports forecast to remain at 122 Bcm in the next few years.
Equinor only restarted production at Hammerfest LNG in June last year following a lengthy, 21-month shutdown after a fire in the filter housing of a gas turbine generator.