Equinor extends Norway LNG Outage until August 3

Equinor, a Norwegian company, has extended a maintenance outage to its Hammerfest LNG Terminal, Europe's biggest liquefied gas export facility by another five days, until August 3. The company announced this in a filing with the regulatory authorities on Saturday.

The Melkoeya plant, which is also known as Hammerfest in Arctic Norway, was scheduled to resume operation on July 19, but went offline on April 22 for maintenance.

Equinor announced earlier this month that the plant would be back in operation by July 29.

The regulatory filing didn't explain why the outage lasted until Saturday. The company spokesperson didn't immediately respond to our request for comment.

Melkoeya LNG is capable of delivering around 6.5 billion cubic meters of gas annually, which would be enough to power around 6.5 millions European homes. It accounts for approximately 5% of Norwegian gas exports.

The Melkoeya Island plant receives its gas from the Snoehvit Field in the Barents sea, about 143 km away. Equinor is one of its owners, along with TotalEnergies and Vaar Energi. Terje Solsvik is reporting.

(source: Reuters)