Equinor's Norway LNG plant to be offline March 10-14

OSLO, Feb 28 (Reuters) - Equinor's Hammerfest LNG terminal will be offline from March 10 to March 14 for "corrective maintenance", cutting the daily output capacity to zero from 18.4 million cubic metres of natural gas, according to a regulatory filing on Friday.

The Hammerfest plant, also known as 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, and accounts for roughly 5% of all Norwegian gas exports.

The production at Europe's largest liquefied natural gas export facility had to be stopped to address an immediate technical issue, Equinor's spokesperson said in an email to Reuters.

"The reason is that we have some technical issues with a heat exchanger. This is not considered a safety risk, but a risk of damage to equipment if left unfixed," she added.

The plant at Melkoeya island receives gas from the Snoehvit field in the Barents Sea, some 143 km (89 miles) offshore. Its owners are Equinor, Petoro, TotalEnergies, Vaar Energi and Harbour Energy. (Reporting by Terje Solsvik, editing by Nora Buli and Susan Fenton)

Equinor

Total Energies

VER Energi

Harbour Energy