Norway's Hammerfest LNG plant could be out for a month following fire: REMIT

London — The Equinor-operated Hammerfest LNG plant could remain shut in for a month after a fire late Sept. 28 forced the facility to be taken offline, according to an Equinor REMIT note.

The fire broke out in a turbine at the Hammerfest LNG at Melkoya and the plant was shut down "in accordance with emergency routines," Equinor said.

According to the REMIT note, the plant is expected to resume operations on Oct. 28, though Equinor stressed that the precise end date of the "event" was still unknown.

The entire facility is affected, with a full 18 million cu m/d volume impact, the note stated.

In a separate statement Sept. 29, Equinor said the fire had been put out at 23:30 local time Sept. 28 and the facilities secured. "Equinor will now work to assess damages from the fire and course of events leading to the incident," it said.

Hammerfest LNG had only returned from an unplanned outage earlier on Sept. 28.

The plant first tripped on Sept. 10 and had its restart date pushed back a number of times, with the full 18 million cu m/d volume impact in place for the duration of the outage.

The facility underwent a five-week period of planned maintenance earlier this year, from May 15-June 22.

It liquefies gas delivered from the Snohvit field in the Barents Sea.