By OGJ editors
HOUSTON, July 24 -- On behalf of the Snøhvit gas field licensees, Snøhvit operator and Norwegian state oil company Statoil ASA has awarded two contracts for development of the Snøhvit gas liquefaction plant being built at Melkøya in northern Norway. The plant, expected to be in service in 2006, will be Europe's first liquefied natural gas export facility. It is expected to ship about 70 consignments/year of LNG from Melkøya.
Germany's Linde AG group, Wiesbaden, received a contract valued at 1.6 billion kroner for engineering, materials procurement, and construction management for the plant, which will take gas from Snøhvit, in the Barents Sea off northern Norway.
Linde also worked on the preliminary engineering for the plant and its associated receiving terminal at Melkøya, which is outside Hammerfest in Finnmark County. Linde will perform the work in Germany.
Belgium's Tractebel SA unit Tractebel Industry Engineering will supply product tanks and vessel loading systems under a 2.3 billion kroner contract. The assignment includes the design and construction of four cylindrical storage tanks and associated piping and loading systems connecting the tanks to export jetties.
Design work will begin immediately at Tractebel's office in Brussels.
Two tanks, each with a capacity of 120,000 cu m, will store LNG, and another will store up to 45,000 cu m of liquefied petroleum gases. The fourth tank will hold 470,000 bbl of condensate. The tanks will be built on site, with construction due to start next May and completion scheduled during autumn 2005.