UK Gas Hit As Norway Pipeline Supply Cut

Gas supplies to Britain dropped by 13% on Monday because of a gas field problems in Norway.

Britain, Europe's most traded gas market, saw inflows drop to 71 million cubic metres (mcm), as flows through the Vesterled pipelined dropped to zero.

The cut has been blamed on an outage preventing gas transportation from the North Sea's Oseberg field.

Norway's gas output could be reduced by 21mcm per day until May 6 due to problems at Heimdal riser platform, gas system operator Gassco said.

Norway operates a significant portion of the North Sea gas sector

On March 22, gas prices for within-day delivery jumped more than 50% above the previous day's close following closure of the pipeline linking Belgium to Britain after a pump failed at Bacton, Norfolk.

It is unclear of the exact cause behind the latest outage.

The cut comes at the same time that British business and unions made a joint call to safeguard UK gas supplies for industry.

The British Chambers of Commerce (BCC), the TUC and the British Ceramic Confederation joined forces to make the plea.

Dr Adam Marshall, director of policy and external affairs at the BCC, said: "Large-scale investment in plant is often dependent on stability and having confidence in the future.

"How can these industries be expected to create jobs and wealth if there are serious concerns about the fuel on which they depend?

The Chancellor urged gas fracking support in the Budget to help diversity

He added: "The Government has to work with suppliers to come up with a way of protecting provision and ironing out damaging price volatility. Significant investment in storage has to be investigated as a matter of urgency."

Statoil-operated Oseberg field, as well as Huldra, Skirne and Vale fields, deliver gas to Heimdal field, which is now mainly a processing centre for other fields.

As a result of the outage at Heimdal, gas deliveries through the Vesterled pipeline to St. Fergus gas terminal in Britain could be reduced by 10 mcm per day until May 6, Gassco said.

The St Fergus terminal, operated by Total, is located 35 miles north of Aberdeen on the northeast coast of Scotland.

UK gas storage levels came under significant strain during winter

It receives and processes gas from over 20 North Sea fields providing around a fifth of the UK's daily gas requirements.

The 32-inch Vesterled pipeline, originally built to transport gas from the Frigg field, was extended in 2001 to the Heimdal riser platform in the Norwegian sector of the North Sea.

This enabled the continued export of existing resources in the Norwegian sector to St Fergus. The pipeline is owned by the Gassled partnership.

It is a consortium of 12 entities which is led by Petoro AS, which manages the Norwegian state's direct financial interest.

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