StatoilHydro resume production at Snohvit

Norway based StatoilHydro has resumed production from the Snohvit field in the Barents Sea, after extensive service work comprising 150,000 labour hours.

The plant began producing liquefied natural gas on Thursday at about 60% of its design capacity.

Morten Svenning and Sivert Vist, start-up managers at the Hammerfest LNG plant said, we are very pleased to have started production again.

The plant had stopped production on May 8, 2008. Since then a lot of people had been working to restart the plant.

Geir Hopland, who was in charge of the turnaround, said we have performed all of the work we had planned to do within the time schedule and with no serious incidents.

The problems with the refrigeration unit have been the main area of focus during the turnaround.