Iberdrola's first Snoehvit deal gas comes from Egypt

LONDON: Spanish power company Iberdrola has received the first shipment of liquefied natural gas (LNG) under a deal it has with the developers of Norway s yet-to-start Snoehvit gas field, it said on Friday. The 145,000 cubic meters of gas delivered to the Sagunto LNG plant on the Mediterranean coast came from Egypt. The Snoehvit LNG project is running behind schedule and is having to source gas from elsewhere to meet its commitments. Norway s Statoil is developing the Snoehvit field in the Barents Sea in partnership with Petoro, Total and Gaz de France and others, and now expects gas production to start by December 2007. Iberdrola, which has 5,600 megawatts of gas-fired power generation capacity and a gas distribution business of its own, has a long term contract to buy 1.6 billion cubic meters a year from Snoehvit. Iberdrola is Spain s number two gas supplier after Gas Natural and expects to import 136 ships of LNG this year, 20 percent of the LNG coming into Spain in 2006. It also has long term deals with Algeria s Sonatrach and Nigeria LNG.