Norway’s Equinor has halted a gas leak at at its Hammerfest LNG plant in northern Norway that forced a stoppage to liquefied natural gas production at the facility.
The energy company said in a statement that “normalization is under way” but added that is too early to determine when LNG output will resume at the facility, which receives and processes gas from the Snohvit field in the Barents Sea.
The Nordic country’s oil and gas safety regulator has launched an investigation into the gas leak incident at the LNG plant, said a spokesperson for the Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) on 1 June.
“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,” said the PSA.
The authority’s investigation includes assessing consequences of the incident, direct and underlying causes along with identifying deviations and points for improvement related to the regulations.
Equinor said the leak occurred on Wednesday 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.
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About 100 people were present at the plant when the incident happened. No injuries were reported.
Upstream has reached out to Equinor for comment.
Equinor just 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.
During normal production, Hammerfest LNG delivers around 6.5 billion cubic metres of gas per year, 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.