Since January 25th there has been a 60 percent production at the LNG-plant at Melkøya. At the recently quarterly status presentation of StatoilHydro, CEO Helge Lund said that it will take more than a year before they have full production at the plant, according to Norwegian newspaper Dagens Næringsliv.
The problems are in the cooling system, where the gas is cooled down so that it becomes liquid and can be transported in LNG-ships. The construction at Melkøya is the first of its kind, and some start up problems was expected. But none of StatoilHydros engineers had calculated that the problems would be this extensive. The problems adds drastically costs to the Snøhvit-project.
Lund will not say whether they have to install a whole new cooling system or not. Dagens Næringsliv thereby state that he can not deny that it may happen. - We must look further into which mechanical and technical solutions that can solve the problems, is Lunds reply.
