Norway's gas production hit by massive outages

[OSLO] Gas output from Norway, Western Europe's main natural gas supplier, will be hit by a massive outage at the country's biggest gas field Troll, the country's gas system operator Gassco said.

The Troll's production capacity will be reduced by 117 million cubic metres (mcm) per day on Wednesday, and the outage could last for one to two days, Gassco said on its website.

The outage impact is calculated for the gas day, which starts at 0600 CET.

In addition, production capacity at Kvitebjoern gas field will be cut by 22.4 mcm/day on Wednesday, up from 10 mcm/day on Tuesday, the system operator said in a separate message.

Gassco did not provide explanation for the outages, but Kollsnes processing plant, which takes gas from Troll and Kvitebjoern, was shut due to external power supply loss on Tuesday evening, data from the Nordic power exchange shows.

Troll A gas platform also gets power from onshore grid.

The volume of the outages indicate that both the Troll and the Kvitebjoern will be completely shut, reducing Norway's total gas production capacity by more than a third.

Norway's gas production capacity this winter stands at around 350 mcm/day, while its real-time pipeline gas exports were running at a rate of 236 mcm/day by 0145 GMT on Wednesday.

Gas flows via the Langeled pipeline, Britain's main subsea gas import route, were down to 25 mcm/day compared to its full transportation capacity of 72 mcm/day.

REUTERS