Next after Qatar is Australia! Chevron's key LNG facility damaged by a tropical cyclone, restart will take several weeks.

Ask AI · How much do the Qatar and Australia incident overlap affect energy prices?

The global LNG supply chain is facing a double blow.

After an attack by Iran caused the Qatar Ras Laffan plant to shut down, the tropical cyclone “Narelle” severely damaged Australia’s west coast. Meanwhile, the Wheatstone natural gas plant owned by Chevron suffered equipment damage and is expected to take several weeks to restore full-load production, further intensifying supply pressure in the global LNG market.

Chevron confirmed in a statement last weekend that the Wheatstone gas facility near Onslow was damaged by strong storms, and that restarting operations was affected. The company said the assessment of damage to the onshore Wheatstone plant and the offshore Wheatstone platform is still ongoing, “and it may take several weeks to safely complete repairs and restore full-load production.”

According to a report by Reuters, Saul Kavonic, an analyst at MST Marquee, said that the cyclone “Narelle” was estimated to disrupt LNG facilities on Australia’s north and west coasts, with affected capacity equivalent to more than 30 million tons per year. Combined with the shock from conflicts in the Middle East, more than one-quarter of global LNG supply has already been disrupted.

Wheatstone damaged, Gorgon has resumed

Wheatstone is a twin-train LNG project with an annual capacity of 8.9 million tons, of which about 15% of production is supplied to Australia’s domestic market as required. The storm caused equipment damage, delaying the facility’s restart timeline significantly.

Chevron previously disclosed that one of its three LNG production lines at the Gorgon plant had been temporarily shut down, and that the offshore platform supplying gas to Wheatstone was also affected. However, on Sunday, Chevron said that its Gorgon LNG export facility and related domestic gas supply installations, with annual capacity of 15.9 million tons, have resumed full-load operations, and all three production lines were fully back online on Sunday.

The storm’s impact was broader; Woodside was also affected

The scope of damage from this cyclone went beyond Chevron’s assets. The associated infrastructure linked to the North West Shelf export plant operated by Woodside Energy was also hit. Woodside said it is actively working to restore normal operations, and its Macedon and Pluto natural gas facilities are currently still producing.

Woodside also said that with the Dapier port reopening on Saturday, loading operations for Pluto LNG vessels have resumed.

Data from the energy research organization EnergyQuest shows that last month, the three major facilities—Gorgon, Wheatstone, and the North West Shelf—together contributed nearly half of Australia’s LNG export volume, accounting for about 8.4% of global LNG trade.

With supply gaps compounding, market pressure continues to rise

This Australia supply disruption came at a key point when the global LNG market was already under strain. Earlier this month, an Iranian airstrike severely damaged the world’s largest LNG export facility—the Qatar Ras Laffan plant—causing about 17% of Qatar’s LNG production capacity to be offline, and pushing Australia up to become the world’s second-largest LNG exporter.

Now, Australia’s own supply has also suffered an unexpected shock, further worsening the already tight global LNG supply-demand balance. Saul Kavonic’s calculations show that with both major producing regions simultaneously blocked, the scale of global LNG supply disruption has exceeded one-quarter; in the short term, the market is unlikely to find effective replacement sources, and price pressure is expected to continue.