After Difficult Planning, Norway Taps Deep Sea Reserves

摘要

The consequences of changing designs in midstream are rippling through the Norwegian Arctic's $8-billion Snohvit offshore gas project, as far as Spain. Its floating liquefaction plant is being made ready there to sail north. Difficulties in exploiting gas from beneath the deep Barent Sea, far beyond the world's northernmost town, have been tougher than developers expected. After major efforts to accelerate construction, Snohvit's liquefied natural gas plant, Europe's first, is almost complete on a 154 x 54 x 9-meter-deep steel barge tied up near Cadiz, by the Strait of Gibraltar. Spanish erection teams are working flat out to get the 35,000-tonne assembly sailing this June to small Melkoya Island, just off Norway's north coast at Hammerfest, ahead of early winter storms.