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Norway schedules partial gas outages for summer of 2018
* Maintenance at top plant Kollsnes in May-June, Aug-Sept
* Initial scope of cuts 3.2 bcm for 2018, more to come
* Planned outages could trigger summer price volatility (Adds trader and analyst comments, detail)
By Lefteris Karagiannopoulos
OSLO, Dec (Shanghai: 600875.SS - news) 15 (Reuters) - Norway's Kollsnes gas-processing plant, the country's largest, will be partially shut from May 25 to July 1 and for 25 days between August and September, gas system operator Gassco said on Friday, announcing some of its 2018 maintenance plans.
Along with other planned outages, as well as expectations that more shutdowns will be announced at a later date, the maintenance schedule could drive up summer price volatility, traders and analysts said.
Among other plans, the Entry SEGAL pipeline to Britain will undergo maintenance from Sept. 1-3, while Britain's St. Fergus receiving terminal maintenance was scheduled for May 2-18 and Aug. 3 with a 39 million cubic metres (mcm) per day impact.
Norway exports natural gas from its offshore fields via a dense network of subsea pipelines to Britain, Germany, France and Belgium after processing it at onshore plants. Its gas meets about 25 percent of Europe's demand.
The maintenance plans so far showed Norway's capacity reductions in 2018 will amount to about 3.2 billion cubic meters (bcm), according to a Reuters calculation, and will occur in May, June, August and September.
The plan is only partial, however, as the operator expects to schedule maintenance for its remaining facilities at a later date, and is also subject to changes.
The total scope, even though at the moment smaller than the 4 bcm of 2017, is expected to be larger than in 2017, a year of exceptionally low maintenance, a projection by Energy Aspects consultancy showed.
It predicted maintenance-related capacity reductions for 2018 at between 5 bcm and 7 bcm, and said Norway's production in 2018 would fall by 5 bcm from the 123 bcm expected for 2017.
Such a development could increase price volatility in Britain, a country highly dependent on Norwegian gas, said Miroslav Zadak, a trader at Czech utility Amper Market.
"Ι definitely see bigger pressure on the season spreads. Ιn that context the possible interruptions on BBL (Shenzhen: 002776.SZ - news) (gas pipeline between Britain and the Netherlands) might lead to price spikes during summer (2018)," he said.
"To sum it up, the volatility might go higher," he added.
The Kollsnes plant in western Norway processes gas from the country's Troll offshore field, a key gas supply source for Western Europe.
The partial shutdown will reduce the plant's daily production capacity of 144.5 mcm by 40.5 mcm for most of the maintenance duration, Gassco said on its website. The Entry SEGAL pipeline's capacity will be reduced by 17 mcm/day.
There were no plans announced for annual maintenance at the Kaarstoe and Nyhamna gas-processing plants, though Gassco may include them at a later stage. (Editing by Terje Solsvik; Editing by Dale Hudson)
