By Ben Farey
Feb. 13 (Bloomberg) -- Gassco AS, Norway’s natural-gas pipeline operator, said a power blackout halted gas flows to the U.K. through the Vesterled pipeline.
“There won’t be any flows during this gas day,” Gassco spokesman Kjell Varlo Larsen said by phone from Bygnes, Norway. A so-called gas day is a 24-hour period until 6 a.m.
A power failure at StatoilHydro ASA’s Heimdal platform in the North Sea last night cut power to the nearby Heimdal Riser and halted deliveries to Britain, the spokesman said. The problem is being fixed, he added.
More of the fuel is being pumped through the Langeled pipeline into the U.K. to compensate, Gassco said.
Gas for delivery today advanced as much as 14 percent in London. It traded for 49 pence a therm at 12:49 p.m. local time, according to ICAP Plc. That’s equal to $7.12 a million British thermal units. A therm is 100,000 Btus.
Production is being increased elsewhere in Norway to make up for the outage, according to the company. Total gas production is reduced by 20 million cubic meters a day to 320 million and it is not clear when normal operations will be restored, Gassco said.
Vesterled, a 340-kilometer (210-mile) pipeline, can transport as much as 36 million cubic meters of gas a day from Norwegian North Sea deposits including StatoilHydro’s Heimdal and Oseberg fields. The link arrives in the U.K. at Total SA’s St. Fergus terminal in northeast Scotland.
StatoilHydro said it halted production of 1,000 barrels of oil equivalent a day at its Heimdal field as a result of the power failure. “There are only minor restrictions,” StatoilHydro spokesman Geir Gjervan said by phone.
The Heimdal Riser serves as a hub for gas from the Oseberg Gas Transport line, as well as from the Huldra, Heimdal and Vale fields. The riser sends gas through the Statpipe system to Germany as well as to the U.K.
To contact the reporter on this story: Ben Farey in London at bfarey@bloomberg.net.
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