Snøhvit and the Melkøya LNG-plant has so far been an aching problem for StatoilHydro, with several production stops and a gigantic budget overrun. The plant was opened for production in 2007, but StatoilHydro has never managed to achieve full production due to the difficulties.
At full production, StatoilHydro was going to earn more than 100 million EUR every month on gas sales. However, the difficulties on the cooling system have not been solved in spite of several reconstructions and production stops. Recently StatoilHydro has manage to solve several of their previous problems, and the planned production stop and maintenance in august will hopefully put an end to all previous problems, according to news website e24.no
