Thursday, January 15, 2015

STORMS, SMOKE AND ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS DISRUPT NORWAY PRODUCTION, GAS EXPORTS PLUMMET 40 PERCENT



STORMS, SMOKE AND ELECTRICAL PROBLEMS DISRUPT NORWAY PRODUCTION, GAS EXPORTS PLUMMET 40 PERCENT

January 14, 2015

Norway gas exports dropped nearly 40 percent Wednesday after three major fields, including Statoil’s Troll field, were shutdown amid severe storms and electrical problems.
Norway’s gas exports dropped by nearly a third after an electrical problem on the Troll A platform Tuesday forced Statoil to shutdown production at the field.

Production was halted after smoke was detected in an electrical switchboard on the platform.

No fire occurred and no damages were reported.  However, where is a smoke, there is a fire, as the old saying goes.

Norway’s Statoil plans to restart production after a systems check although it has not disclosed a timetable for bringing exports back online, Reuters said.

The company said it will take between six to 12 hours for normal export flows to start once production has resumed.

The Troll field is Norway’s largest gas field and accounts for about a third of the country’s gas export capacity.

Production was also halted earlier this week at Statoil’s Oseberg and Kvitebjorn fields in the North Sea ahead of major winter storms.

Export flows from Oseberg were cut by 4.9 million cubic meters a day and flows from Kvitebjoern dropped by 22 million cubic feet per day.

Statoil has not disclosed when exports from the two fields will resume.

According to Norway-based Gassco, outages across Norway dropped the country’s export capacity about 40 percent below the 30 day average Wednesday to 210 million cubic meters per day.