Swift Repair: Norway's Gas Pipeline to Resume Flows in Two Days

An outage in Norway's gas exports through the Langeled pipeline is expected to be fixed within the next two days, according to Gassco. The incident, caused by a crack in a pipeline onboard Equinor's Sleipner Riser platform, led to a spike in gas prices across Europe and beyond.

An outage of Norway's gas exports to Britain via the Langeled pipeline will likely be repaired in the next two days, with flows set to resume early on June 7, Norwegian system operator Gassco said on Tuesday. The outage, which Gassco attributed to a crack in a two-inch pipeline onboard Equinor's offshore Sleipner Riser platform, on Monday drove up gas prices in Europe, the United States and beyond.

"Based on what we have heard from the field operator, this is the repair time we think it will take to fix the problem," Alfred Hansen, head of system operations at Gassco, told Reuters following a meeting with Equinor. Repairs could take longer or also less time, but were not expected to take weeks, he added.

Gassco will stay in frequent contact with Equinor throughout the repair period and update outage timings on its transparency website to reflect the latest estimates, Hansen said. Equinor did not immediately respond to a request for comment. The company has previously referred questions on the outage to Gassco.

Norway in 2022 overtook Russia as Europe's biggest gas supplier after Moscow's invasion of Ukraine, making any outages at Norwegian fields a possible trigger for higher prices. Sleipner Riser is a connection point for the Langeled North and Langeled South pipelines connecting the Nyhamna plant on Norway's west coast with the Easington terminal in northeast England.

The outage on Monday lifted European gas prices to their highest since December on concerns it could tighten supply at a time of worries over remaining Russian volumes and an Asian heatwave increasing competition for liquefied natural gas (LNG). Norwegian gas supply nominations rose marginally to 264 million cubic metres (mcm) per day on Tuesday, from 256 mcm/day nominated on Monday, according to Gassco data but were still well below the 300 mcm or more per day normally scheduled.

Europe's benchmark gas price, the Dutch front-month contract , reacted to the latest Gassco projection, shedding 4% to 34.93 euros/MWh by 0925 GMT. It briefly spiked on Monday to a peak of 38.56 euros, its highest level since early December.

Nyhamna is able to process up to 79.8 mcm per day, while Britain's Easington terminal has a capacity of 72.50 mcm/day.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)