Gassco: Kaarstoe Gas Full Output on Saturday

Kaarstoe production capacity halved; plant has full capacity of 88 mcm/day.

Norway's Kaarstoe processing plant is expected to return to normal production on Saturday after a partial shutdown prompted by a gas leak on Thursday, gas system operator Gassco said on Friday.

"Gas deliveries to the Continent will be somewhat reduced during the current gas day as production at Kaarstoe is halved. However, full deliveries are expected tomorrow," Gassco said in a statement.

Kaarstoe, which receives gas from a number of offshore fields in the North Sea, has a production capacity of 88 million cubic metres (mcm) per day.

It delivers gas mainly to Germany but can also reroute to other destinations.

Flows to the Dornum receiving terminal in Germany fell by 20 mcm and to Emden terminal by 30 mcm early on Friday, Gassco data showed.

Deliveries to Germany, however, bounced back helped by some gas diverted from Britain.

Statoil (STO), technical service provider at Kaarstoe, said it had managed to stop a gas leak by 0700 GMT on Friday and that Kaarstoe had restarted production.

Another gas alarm sounded at the plant shortly after that, but Statoil said that was not unusual during restarts, and the leak had been identified.

Gas prices in Britain, Europe's biggest gas traded market, slipped on higher supplies from the Netherlands and warmer weather outlook, shrugging off the outage in Norway.

Norwegian gas exports to Europe stood at 319 mcm/day as of 1230 GMT, down 16 mcm from volumes delivered on Thursday.

Reporting by Terje Solsvik and Nerijus Adomaitis