Equinor extends Hammerfest LNG outage to August 3

Norway's Equinor has further extended an ongoing maintenance outage at its Hammerfest LNG terminal, Europe's largest liquefied natural gas export facility, by five days to August 3, the company said in a regulatory filing on Saturday.

The Hammerfest plant in Arctic Norway, also known as Melkoeya LNG, went offline for annual maintenance on April 22, and was initially scheduled to return to operation on July 19.

Equinor earlier this month extended the work by 10 days and said the plant was expected to return to operation on July 29.

The regulatory filing did not explain why the outage was extended on Saturday. A company spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Melkoeya LNG has the capacity to deliver around 6.5 billion cubic metres of gas per year, enough to supply around 6.5 million European homes, and accounts for roughly five per cent of all Norwegian gas exports.

The plant at Melkoeya Island receives gas from the Snoehvit field in the Barents Sea, some 143 kilometres (89 miles) offshore. Its owners are Equinor, Petoro, TotalEnergies, Vaar Energi and Harbour Energy.

(Reporting by Terje Solsvik)