The Norwegian Safety Authority has criticised Statoil after a potentially fatal gas leak.
The hydrocarbon leak occurred at the Hammerfest LNG facility in northern Norway.
The safety authority said had the leak ignited it could have claimed two workers’ lives – a person in in the immediate vicinity of the reported leak and another nearby but still close enough to be fatally wounded.
The site is Europe’s only LNG plant. It’s located in Snøhvit, near Melkøya in arctic Norway.
The incident took place on January 5. The safety authority investigated two days later.
It estimated the leak escaped at 0.1 to 0.3 kilograms per second with the entire leak totalling 250 to 750 kilograms.
The investigation determined the leak sprouted from the ‘stuffing box’ of a pump. Wear was recorded on one of the gaskets in the box but the exact cause remains unknown.
The safety authority sent an official letter to Statoil demanding to know what its next steps were.
In an official statement the authority said: “The investigation identified one nonconformity. This related to the time which elapsed between the sounding of the alarm and the start of pressure blowdown.”
Production at Hammerfest was shutdown for three days following the incident. The natural gas plant handles more than 20million cubic metres of gas a day.
Statoil is carrying out its own investigation following the leak.