Norwegian oil-and-gas champion StatoilHydro has admitted a number of operational setbacks — including at its biggest gas fields — which will continue to trim production well into 2008 and took the company share price down on Friday by 11 percent.

The bad news piled up at the weekend: a closure of the Arctic liquefied natural gas plant Hammefest LNG, which processes the Snoehvit field’s throughput, will be shut down in January due to saltwater incursion into a heat-exchanger.

A pipeline from the Kvitebjoern and Visund fields to the Kollsnes terminal was “most likely damaged by a ship’s anchor” and will have to be repaired and closed.

The Shell-operated Ormen Lange gas field, Europe’ largest, will see trimmed production due to slow progress drilling production wells.

Company managers also cited “an accumulated lag” in 2006 and 2007 drilling that also weighed in on the lowered production forecast to topple company share price.

StatoilHydro still forecasts production of 1.75 million barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2008, after royalties, but the good numbers follow a succession of announcements forecasting still-higher numbers.

ws@scandoil.com

Tags: StatoilHydro