London, 30 July (Argus) — The 153,300m³ Provalys has finally left Spain, after unloading its cargo of Norwegian LNG more than a month after loading at Hammerfest.

The tanker loaded at the Snohvit liquefaction train at Hammerfest in early June, departing for Cartagena, Spain, on 12 June. But it failed to unload on its arrival, instead remaining moored nearby for a month. It finally unloaded over the last fortnight, but only gradually, amid talk of a fault on its discharge mechanism.

The tanker has since reloaded at the Algerian Bethioua train and is now en route to Dahej in India.

Four tankers have loaded at Hammerfest since the Provalys first departed northern Norway, but none have done so in more than a fortnight. The facility underwent a “temporary production stop” on 10 July as a result of an issue with its gas dryers and has yet to restart. The 147,200m³ Artctic Lady was moored nearby today waiting to load when the facility returns.

Loadings at Snohvit have been relatively weak in the summer to date following the facility's closure for maintenance in May. Just three tankers have loaded in each of the past three months, compared with an average of five per month in the first four months of the year. A lengthy unplanned maintenance outage last year also resulted in weak output over the summer months.

The Provalys was the eighth consecutive tanker to unload its Snohvit cargo at a European destination, with Europe now accounting for 71pc of Norway's total LNG output so far this year. In 2011, European destinations took delivery of 61pc of the field's output.

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