Statoil dispatches 500th Hammerfest LNG cargo

Statoil said that the 500th cargo was loaded from the Snøhvit LNG plant at Melkøya on Monday, 27 October.

Since start-up in 2007, more than NOK 80 billion worth of LNG has been dispatched from Melkøya, Statoil said in a statement on Tuesday.

The 140,000 cbm Arctic Voyager is the 500th to visit Melkøya and Hammerfest to carry the chilled gas from the Snøhvit plant. The vessel will freight a cargo of LNG from Melkøya to Aliaga in Turkey.

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

“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’s vice president for LNG trading, Geir Heitmann, in MPR Marketing and Trading.

According to Statoil, LNG currently accounts for approximately 10 percent 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,” Statoil added.

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LNG World News Staff; Image: Statoil