Australia LNG continues to disrupt after Narelle Thousands without power

Australia's liquefied gas production remains disrupted, and thousands of people in the remote north were left without electricity on Sunday. This is more than a fortnight after the Narelle Storm System hit the country.

The impact of the 'Narelle', which was downgraded to a tropical cyclone on Saturday, has been exacerbated by a global LNG shortage caused by a month-old Iran War.

Qatar's production was halted after Iranian attacks damaged its facilities, and Australia became the second largest LNG exporter in the world.

Narelle, a severe tropical storm, made landfall in Queensland on March 20. It then crossed the Northern Territory and hit Western Australia. On March 27, the storm hit Exmouth, a town in Western Australia. It also affected the town of Karratha.

Woodside Australia announced on Sunday that Narelle is still causing production to be interrupted at its Karratha gas plants, the onshore processing facilities for the North West Shelf project.

In a press release, a spokesperson for the company said that they had begun remobilising their workforce to some offshore facilities. Inspections would inform the startup process and timing.

The spokesperson confirmed that production was not affected at the Macedon and Pluto sites.

Chevron didn't immediately respond to an inquiry for comment made on Sunday. It said on Saturday that it was working to restore gas production at its Gorgon & Wheatstone facilities after production outages caused by Narelle.

Gorgon, Australia's biggest LNG export facility?produces 15.6 million metric tonnes a year, with three processing train, while Wheatstone?has two trains?producing 8.9 millions tons.

The Department of Fire and Emergency Services reported that power remained out in Exmouth late Saturday night. Exmouth is a town with 2,800 residents located 1,100 km (700 mi) north of the state capital of West Australia, Perth.

Horizon Power, a state-owned company, said that extra crews would be heading to Exmouth to "support local crews in restoring?power? to affected properties as?soon?as?it is safe?to do so".

The Australian Broadcasting Corp reported that Exmouth, a gateway town to the UNESCO World Heritage listed Ningaloo Reef suffered major damage during the cyclone, but no injuries were reported.

(source: Reuters)