Norwegian maintenance, both planned and unplanned, on gas infrastructure has been extended across several key assets, transmission system operator Gassco said Sept. 6, meaning exports will be lower for longer.
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Register NowThe works were expected to further limit exports from the Norwegian Continental Shelf after flows fell to multi-year lows at the start of September.
Annual planned works at Troll, Norway's largest gas field, have been extended and were set to see the asset's full 125 million cu m/d technical capacity remain offline until Sept. 10, extended from Sept. 7, according to Gassco.
On its restart, Troll will still have around 60 million cu m/d unavailable through Sept. 10-11, with around 45 million cu m/d curtailed through Sept. 11-12. Additionally, planned maintenance was also expected to see around 6 million cu m/d of production offline from Sept. 12 to Oct. 5, Gassco said.
Elsewhere, works at the Aasta Hansteen field have also been extended, with the asset's full technical capacity of 25.8 million cu m/d expected to remain offline through Sept. 9, an extension of two days.
Some 12.9 million cu m/d of gas production at Aasta Hansteen will then remain offline through Sept. 9-10, with Gassco citing corrective maintenance as the reason for the unplanned outage.
Further, unplanned works at the Dvalin gas field were also extended by two days, with the field's entire 6 million cu m/d technical capacity set to remain offline until Sept. 9.
In addition, planned maintenance at the Ormen Lange gas field were announced Sept. 6, with Gassco indicating the asset's full 24.5 million cu m/d capacity will remain offline from Sept. 11 until Oct. 2.
At the Oseberg gas field, planned maintenance works were set to continue until Sept. 16.
Despite the outages, gas prices in Europe remain steady, with the TTF month-ahead price trading at around Eu33.70/MWh ($36/MWh) at 1230 GMT, according to ICE data.
Platts last assessed the TTF month-ahead price at Eur34.875/MWh on Sept. 5, according to S&P Global Commodity Insights data.
Processing problems
In addition to the field outages, key processing assets across the NCS have also been affected, Gassco data showed.
The Kollsnes processing plant, which handles gas from the Troll field, was set to see its full 153 million cu m/d capacity curtailed by an additional day, with planned works expected to conclude Sept. 8.
Additional maintenance at the facility will then see some 83 million cu m/d trimmed through Sept. 8-9, a day later than originally expected, with around 11 million cu m/d also curtailed through Sept. 9-20, with the works now commencing a day later than expected.
Total exports from the NCS to Continental Europe were nominated at 136.8 million cu m/d on Sept. 6, marginally lower than the 137 million cu m/d recorded the day prior, according to Gassco.