30 BCBusiness september 2015
NorwegiaN
way
the
What B.C. can learn
from its Scandinavian
friends as it attempts to
kickstart a nascent
LNG industry
by A ndr e w F indlay
ammerfest lives up to its name. Situated on a
barren coastal headland 1,300 kilometres north of
the capital, Oslo, and just above the Arctic Circle, this
Norwegian city of 10,000 gets hammered by winter
winds that whip off the Barents Sea. Fifteen years ago
the port city was also getting hammered by a sagging
fishing sector, in decline since the 1970s, but today
Hammerfest bustles with activity and jingles with
money—all thanks to the Snohovit
LNG plant. Con-
struction of the US$5.3-billion plant—a sprawling
facility located on Melkoya Island, which was
previously inhabited only by nesting seabirds—began
in 2003, with the first load of
LNG shipped in 2007.
Today annual exports of Snohovit
LNG sit at around
5.75 billion cubic metres, destined mostly for Spain's
Iberdrola port and the east coast of the United States.
The Norwegian Crown corporation Statoil oper-
ates Snohovit and along with another state-owned oil
and gas player, Petoro AS, holds a 64 per cent stake in
Snohovit, with the rest shared by four other minor-
H
phot o g r aphy by St e v e O g le
