Equinor’s Hammerfest LNG plant in Arctic Norway is facing another setback, this time due to a compressor failure, as reported by Gassco. Production has been halted until January 9, causing a week-long outage for Europe’s largest LNG export facility. This interruption highlights the challenges faced by the plant in maintaining consistent operations.
Hammerfest LNG, located on Melkoeya Island, is a vital energy source, supplying enough gas to heat 6.5 million homes across Europe. The plant accounts for approximately 5% of Norway’s natural gas exports, making it an important player in the European energy market, especially after the disruption of Russian gas supplies in 2022.
This latest incident adds to a growing list of operational issues at Hammerfest LNG, which has faced several challenges in recent years. Last April, the plant experienced a gas leak, and in 2020, a fire forced the plant to suspend operations for 18 months. These reliability problems have raised concerns, although Equinor and its co-owners—TotalEnergies, Vaar Energi, Petoro, and Harbour Energy—continue to operate the plant with gas sourced from the Snoehvit field in the Barents Sea.
The Hammerfest LNG facility has the capacity to process around 6.5 billion cubic meters of gas annually, enough to supply gas to 6.5 million European homes. With exports representing 5% of Norway’s total gas exports, the plant plays a critical role in Europe’s energy security.
This shutdown comes during the winter heating season, further complicating Europe’s already strained energy situation. In late September, Norway had also faced disruptions, restarting its Kaarstoe processing plant after a three-week maintenance delay.
Following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and its subsequent reduction of gas supplies to the EU, Norway has become Europe’s largest natural gas supplier. However, issues like the Hammerfest LNG outage underline the continued vulnerability of Europe’s energy infrastructure during peak demand seasons.
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