Cargo number 500 leaves Snøhvit

The special vessel Arctic Voyager is the 500th to visit Melkøya and Hammerfest to carry product from the Snøhvit plant. The vessel will freight a cargo of LNG from Melkøya, Norway to Aliaga, Turkey.

With this cargo, the Snøhvit plant has produced and delivered LNG worth NOK 82 billion since start-up in 2007.

In addition, considerable value has been added through the export of LPG and condensate from the field.

“This is a special day for the Snøhvit organisation and for Statoil. A lot of hard work has gone into all these 500 cargoes,” says vice president for operations on Snøhvit Knut Gjertsen.

He believes Snøhvit is a unique plant with its pioneering, new technology that has enabled the production and export of LNG from Hammerfest, the world’s northernmost town.

Snøhvit is currently the most energy-efficient LNG plant in the world, with the lowest carbon emissions per unit produced.

“Snøhvit has also been a challenge. We’ve worked long and systematically on the plant, and with the organisation, in order to stabilise operations. We are now beginning to see the results. During the past 15 months we’ve delivered our best results for safe and regular production. We work hard and systematically every single day to continue delivering good results,” says Gjertsen.

Statoil sells LNG to Europe, Asia, and North and South America. The gas is transported in liquid form in special vessels that can sail across the Atlantic, through the Suez Canal, and even through the North-East Passage to get to gas markets.

An LNG vessel carries a cargo of substantial value and flexibility of destination means that there can be great value in optimising a portfolio to exploit the different market prices prevailing in various regions.

“A single cargo may have a market value of around NOK 250 million, which means that even small price differentiation between markets can result in substantial added value for Statoil. That makes LNG trading an important way of maximising the value of the Snøhvit gas,” says Statoil vice president for LNG trading Geir Heitmann.

LNG currently accounts for approximately 10% of the global gas market. In the years ahead, new LNG export projects will be completed in Australia, the USA and elsewhere.

That means that LNG will be an increasingly important factor in balancing the global market and will have a considerable impact on the price of gas in different regions.