Liquefied natural gas (LNG) tanker Arctic Voyager is set to arrive at Norway’s Hammerfest terminal on May 9, Refinitiv Eikon data showed on Monday, ahead of a planned restart of gas production the following week.

Europe’s only large-scale LNG plant, at Melkoeya island outside the Arctic town of Hammerfest, is scheduled to resume production on May 17 following a 20-month outage, according to operator Equinor.

“Yes, we are preparing to restart the plant on May 17,” a company spokesperson said on Monday, reiterating the scheduled plan for the restart.

The plant, which can process 18 million cubic metres (mcm) of gas per day, has been out of service since September 2020 following a blaze that raised concerns over safety practices.

At Melkoeya, gas is piped in from the offshore Snoehvit field, 160 km (100 miles) away in the Barents Sea. The field was forced to shut as a result of the plant’s closure.

Source: Reuters