Norway's Hammerfest LNG restarts after three-month maintenance outage

Norway's Equinor restarted its Hammerfest LNG terminal on Sunday, Europe's largest natural gas export facility, after more than three months of maintenance, a company spokesperson said on Monday.

The Hammerfest plant in Arctic Norway, also known as Melkoeya LNG, had been offline since April 22. The facility had initially been scheduled to return to operation on July 19, but this was later postponed twice.

Melkoeya LNG has the capacity to deliver about 6.5 billion cubic metres of gas per year, enough to supply about 6.5 million European homes per day, 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 Nora Buli, editing by Terje Solsvik)