A consortium with Fabricom GTI, Entrepose Contracting and headed by Tractebel Engineering, has completed in the second quarter of 2007 the construction of natural gas storage and loading facilities which are part of the Snøhvit project in Melkøya near Hammerfest (North of Norway). The Snøhvit project involves the extraction of natural gas in the Barentsz Sea, bringing it to land for liquefaction and shipping. The project was set up by a consortium with Gaz de France, Petoro, Total and some investor companies and led by StatoilHydro.
The consortium headed by Tractebel Engineering entered into the construction contract in July 2002. During the construction period, a dispute arose with respect to costs and compensation for the work under the contract. The dispute was referred to the court of Stavanger for settlement and the main hearings ended on 26 September 2007.
On January 10th, an out-of-court agreement was reached between StatoilHydro, as operator of the Snøhvit unit, and Tractebel Engineering, as leader of the construction consortium. It consists of several significant contractual amendments and a supplementary payment of 95 MEUR on the initial 293 MEURO contract value.
The installations of the Snøhvit project that were designed and realized by the Tractebel Engineering led consortium perform well and confirm the high level of engineering expertise Tractebel Engineering proposes to its customers, notably in the gas industry.
