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Unplanned outages

plague LNG plants

A handful of liquefaction terminals around
the world are dealing with unplanned outages

COMMENTARY SEVERAL LNG facilities globally have had to close to a worst-case scenario – which would
deal with outages recently, for a variety of rea- have been the total destruction of the plant.
sons. Most recently, Equinor said in a regulatory Equinor has launched an internal investiga-
WHAT: statement on October 12 that its LNG terminal tion into the fire, which is also being investigated
Unplanned outages have on Melkoeya Island in Hammerfest, Norway was by Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority.
hit several LNG terminals expected to resume output on January 1, 2021.
around the world. The plant went offline after it was damaged in a Struggling to restart
fire last month. Hammerfest LNG joins a handful of other facil-
WHY: The fire occurred in one of the plant’s elec- ities where repairs are underway, including two
Liquefaction plants are tricity-generating turbines on September 28 and in Australia. One of these is Chevron’s Gorgon
struggling with weather was extinguished on the same day. It followed a LNG terminal in Western Australia, where one
events, weld quality shutdown of the plant following an outage earlier train remains offline while cracks on propane
issues and fire damage. in September. The facility had been scheduled to heat exchangers are being repaired. The other
restart on September 13, but this was delayed two Gorgon trains are scheduled to go offline
WHAT NEXT: until September 23 following the discovery of a next year – though not both at the same time –
The outages may actually gas leak. to be inspected for similar weld quality issues to
be welcome for others in The fire was thus the latest in a series of the ones that required repairs in Train 2.
an oversupplied market. mishaps for Hammerfest LNG – which is also Chevron had initially planned to complete
known as Melkoeya LNG – and the most serious. the repairs on Train 2 by early September, but
A labour union representative and the head of subsequently said the restart of the train would
the local fire brigade were quoted by local media be delayed until October. No further update has
in the aftermath of the fire describing it as being been issued since.

P6 www. NEWSBASE .com Week 42 22•October•2020