Norwegian gas output hit by several field outages

OSLO, Feb 18 (Reuters) - The natural gas production capacity of Western Europe's top supplier, Norway, will be cut by a combined 23.7 million cubic metres (mcm) on Wednesday due to several outages, the gas system operator Gassco said.

Production capacity at the country's biggest offshore field, Troll, will be reduced by 18.1 million cubic metres (mcm), about 15 percent of its total capacity, due to a compressor failure, Gassco said on its website.

The outage, which started at 1800 GMT, is expected to last for three to six hours, it added.

Another outage will reduce production capacity at the Sleipner gas field by 5.6 mcm per day on Wednesday and Thursday. It is expected to last for three to four days.

Norway's Statoil (LSE: 0M2Z.L - news) said earlier on Wednesday it had to shut production at the offshore Gudrun oil and gas field due to a gas leak.

Gas from Gudrun is exported via the Sleipner A platform.

The field was producing 4.6 million cubic metres (mcm) of gas per day in November, the latest available data from the Norwegian Petroleum Directorate showed. (Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis; editing by John Stonestreet)