Equinor ASA (NYSE:EQNR) shares are trading lower after the planned restart of the Hammerfest liquefied natural gas (LNG) plant was postponed until Saturday last week.

The plant was earlier evacuated and shut earlier last week due to a gas leak, reported Reuters.

The Norwegian energy group had previously said it planned to restart production on Friday last week after the gas leak had been repaired.

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As per the report, the outage at the plant, also known as Melkoeya, is now listed to end on Saturday on a transparency website maintained by gas infrastructure operator Gassco.

An Equinor spokesperson said that the plant can restart earlier, as per the report. Notably, the facility has a capacity to deliver 18.4 million cubic metres (mcm) per day, was briefly evacuated on Tuesday while already offline for a maintenance outage initially scheduled to last just one day.

Last week, Equinor reported Q1 FY24 results with $24.79 billion in adjusted revenue.

Last month, the Norwegian energy giant said it will reportedly invest around $6 billion a year in oil and gas exploration and drilling in the country to maintain continued output levels through 2035.

Price Action: EQNR shares are down 1.73% at $27.21 on the last check Monday.