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.