Equinor expects to restart Hammerfest LNG plant on Monday
OSLO, June 24 (Reuters) - Equinor remains on track to restart its Arctic Hammerfest LNG plant on Monday after a weekend power outage halted production, a company spokesperson said.
Hammerfest LNG, also known as Melkoeya, has capacity of about 6.5 billion cubic metres of gas per year. That is enough to supply about 6.5 million European homes and accounts for roughly 5% of all Norwegian gas exports.
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"We plan to ramp up today," the spokesperson said.
Production at Europe's largest liquefied natural gas export facility was halted late on Saturday and is expected to remain offline until 1900 GMT on Monday, according to a regulatory disclosure.
The plant's power generators had been undergoing maintenance when its backup supply from an external grid failed, resulting in the outage.
Equinor will notify the market once a restart has occurred, the Norwegian company's spokesperson said.
Norway is Europe's largest supplier of natural gas after a sharp reduction in Russian deliveries since the start of the war in Ukraine in 2022.
The Melkoeya plant receives its gas via pipeline from the Snoehvit offshore field. Its owners are Equinor, Petoro, TotalEnergies, Vaar Energi and Wintershall Dea.
(Reporting by Nora BuliEditing by Terje Solsvik and David Goodman)