Safety overhaul underway at Equinor’s Barents Sea LNG plant after incident probe

October 6, 2025, by Dragana Nikše

Following an internal investigation of an accident at its liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility in Northern Norway, the Norwegian state-owned energy giant Equinor has introduced measures to prevent similar incidents from happening in the future.

The Hammerfest LNG plant on Melkøya; Source: Øyvind Gravås and Jonny Engelsvoll / Equinor

The investigation focused on an incident that took place on April 24, 2025, at the Hammerfest LNG processing plant. Namely, an employee experienced a 4.4-meter fall during formwork activities related to the construction of a concrete building on the Melkøya island, where the facility is located.

According to Equinor, a few hours before the accident, the company and its main contractor, Aibel, decided to stop work at height on the construction site. However, the message given to Consto, which is the subcontractor, appears not to have reached those who carried out the job.

The investigation highlights that the subcontractor mainly focused on making progress during planning and risk assessment. This reportedly contributed to the risk associated with the formwork activities at height not being sufficiently understood and managed.

Based on the investigation report, the workplace was covered with snow and ice, and filled with more work teams than normal in a limited area, while monitoring was reduced due to an external management gathering.

Furthermore, the team was standing on loose and unsteady formwork beams, and the anchoring points for the fall protection equipment that was used were not sufficient. As a result, the fall protection method was not suitable for reducing the consequences of a fall.

The investigation concluded that the incident was caused by several factors related to the interaction between Equinor, Aibel, and Consto. It seems that not everyone on the subcontractor side felt that they could stop unsafe work, although the Norwegian giants said that this is a clear expectation from its side.

“We expect everyone to report conditions they perceive as unsafe. We always have time to work safely, with a right and duty to stop unsafe work. Everyone should know this when they work for us. We see that this message has not fully reached everyone, which we take very seriously. Together with the management of the supply companies we have taken steps to improve this in our onboarding and safety training,” noted Christina Dreetz, Senior Vice President for Equinor’s onshore facilities.

Based on recommendations from the investigation team, efforts are now underway at Equinor to further improve and structure the monitoring of suppliers at the onshore facilities. This includes improving safety culture, adjusting work processes, and ensuring improvement and learning at all levels.

As explained by Irene Rummelhoff, Equinor’s Executive Vice President for Marketing, Midstream & Processing, the company considers itself to have failed when serious incidents like this happen. Now that a thorough investigation report on the accident has been received, the company intends to use the lessons learned to improve future operations.

“During periods of high activity and many employees from different suppliers at our plants, it is important that requirements and standards for safe work reach everyone. We have reviewed procedures and actions for how we together with our suppliers prepare, enable and follow up everyone performing work at our onshore facilities. Our responsibility is to facilitate compliance with requirements for safe work and to develop a strong safety culture, working closely with our suppliers,” said Rummelhoff.

Hammerfest LNG processes the natural gas from the Snøhvit field. It is said to be the only plant in Northern Europe producing and exporting LNG. The facility produces 6.5 billion standard cubic metres of gas each year, which is about 5% of Norway’s total gas exports, and around 2% of the EU’s gas demand.

The Norwegian major recently disclosed having started production from Askeladd Vest (West). Gas from this subsea field in the Barents Sea is transported to Hammerfest LNG for processing. The gas travels through 195 kilometers of pipelines to Melkøya, which is also connected to Snøhvit via a 143-kilometer pipeline.