World’s northernmost LNG plant seeks to restart services this week in Norway

Norway’s Hammerfest liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant, closed since a fire at the facility in 2020, is expected to resume operations on May 27, Norwegian gas system manager Gassco has announced – marking a further delay of four days over the previous reopening plan.

The latest postponement of production at Hammerfest LNG plant – the world’s northernmost LNG facility – was due to the need for final tests on a compressor that has been repaired, plant operator Equinor said. “Some final tests are remaining on the compressor," an Equinor spokesperson said in a statement.

The delay is the second in less than a week: on May 16, Equinor said a minor fault had been discovered on a compressor, which had to be replaced, and that the restart would thus be delayed until May 23.

The plant, which receives production from Snøhvit and satellite fields in the Barents Sea, has been offline since September 2020, when fire broke out in the filters in the air inlet of one of the gas turbine generators.

“Hammerfest LNG has been prepared for production, but we are taking the extra time necessary to safely resume operations,” Grete B. Haaland, senior vice president for onshore facilities, said in a statement.

In January, Equinor said more than 22,000 components had undergone checks since the fire, and that 180 km of electrical cables had been replaced.

The Hammerfest LNG plant represents around 5 percent of Norway's overall gas export capacity, and other partners in the project include Petoro, TotalEnergies, Neptune Energy and Wintershall Dea.