StatoilHydro starts planned Snoehvit gas shutdown

OSLO, May 9 (Reuters) - Norwegian oil and gas producer StatoilHydro (STL.OL: Quote, Profile, Research) said it began a planned maintenance shutdown of its Snoehvit liquefied natural gas (LNG) complex in the Arctic and plans to restart the plant in early July.

"We started last night with the planned shutdown," Snoehvit spokesman Sverre Kojedal said on Friday. "Start-up is expected in the first weeks of July after numerous inspection, maintenance and minor modification measures aimed to make the plant more robust...and improve capacity."

The $10 billion Snoehvit project is the first offshore development in the Barents Sea and Europe's first LNG export facility. It has been producing at 60 percent capacity due to technical problems since last year's start up. (Reporting by Wojciech Moskwa)