Gas leak at Norway's Kaarstoe plant stopped, impact 'minimal', says Gassco

OSLO (Reuters) -Norway's gas processing plant Kaarstoe was partly evacuated due to an ethane leak on Wednesday evening, but the incident will have "minimal" impact on gas transport, its operator, Gassco, said.

The plant on Norway's western coast exports natural gas via offshore pipeline to Emden, Germany, and also produces liquefied petroleum gas (LPG), exported by tankers.

"The leak was located and stopped. The incident has limited impact on gas transport," a spokesperson for Gassco told Reuters.

Kaarstoe's technical service provider Equinor told Reuters earlier on Wednesday one part of the plant was shut down preventively, while the rest continued to operate.

Kaarstoe has a technical capacity to export around 98 million cubic meters of natural gas per day (mcm/day). Its capacity was already reduced to 75.7 mcm/day before the incident on Wednesday due to maintenance and technical issues, according to Gassco's website.

Norway's pipeline gas exports at 319.6 mcm/day on Wednesday, down from 341 mcm/day the previous day, with output also impacted by an outage at offshore Aasta Hansteen field, according to Gassco.

(Reporting by Nerijus Adomaitis and Nora Buli in Oslo, editing by Anne Kauranen in Helsinki; Editing by Sandra Maler)