By Nerijus Adomaitis
OSLO (Reuters) - Norway's Hammerfest liquefied natural gas plant in Norway has resumed operation as planned and is preparing to restart production of the fuel, a spokesman for operator Equinor told Reuters on Friday.
The plant has been out of service for 20 months following a fire in September 2020.
Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is manufactured by cooling gas to temperatures that it converts to liquid, allowing large quantities to be transported by ship.
"We have resumed operations and begun cooling the plant. We will issue a press release when we have LNG in the tank," said the Equinor spokesperson.
The resumption is good news for the gas market, which is struggling to find alternatives to Russian supplies in the wake of the Ukrainian war, as Norway tries to consolidate its position as a reliable energy supplier.
Europe's only large-scale LNG plant, located on the island of Melkoeya outside the Arctic town of Hammerfest, can process 18.4 million cubic meters (mcm) of gas per day when fully operational, about 5% of Norway's gas export capacity.
The 2020 fire had raised safety concerns.
At Melkoeya, gas is piped from the Snoehvit offshore field 160 km away in the Barents Sea. The field was forced to shut down as a result of the plant closure.
In January, Equinor stated that more than 22,000 components had been overhauled since the fire and 180 km of electrical cables had been replaced.
The partnership includes Equinor, Petoro AS, TotalEnergies, Neptune Energy and Wintershall Dea.
(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; editing by Terje Solsvik; translation by Dario Fernandez)