Statoil's Hammerfest Back Online
Norwegian major Statoil has said today that its Hammerfest LNG production plant is back online following a shutdown earlier this month.
The facility, which processes gas from the Snøhvit field in the Barents Sea, was shut down nine days ago, on the 19th of November, due to a power outage at the plant. The outage occurred because of interference to the power system, Statoil said today, during maintenance work being conducted on the plant's battery-based reserve power. The interference caused the power to the plant to be shut down for 20 minutes, Statoil said last Monday.
An emergency response unit was called at the time of the initial outage though no injuries occurred as a result of the incident.
Production at the plant was completely stopped while an investigation was conducted and while the plant was assessed for any damage or malfunctions. The plant was also partially evacuated at the time of the incident.
Statoil said today that it was now back at normal and full production at the facility, at the company's usual share of 50,000 barrels of oil equivalent (boe) per day of production. Statoil is the operator of the Snøhvit field with a 36.79 per cent stake. Petoro holds the next largest stake at the 30 per cent, while Total E&P Norge, GDF SUEZ E&P Norge and RWE Dea Norge hold the remaining stakes at 18.4 per cent, 12 per cent and 2.81 per cent respectively.