![\"Cyclone](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1774609391_849_.jpeg\"\/)
<\/p>\nA powerful tropical cyclone in Western Australia has disrupted production at the \u200ccountry’s two biggest liquefied natural gas plants run by Chevron and Woodside, exacerbating a global supply crunch caused by the conflict in the Middle East.<\/p>\n
Australia became the world’s second-largest LNG exporter after \u200cQatar shut down production in March following damage to its facilities from Iranian strikes.<\/p>\n
Global LNG flows out of the Middle East have also been upended by Iran’s blockage of the Strait \u200cof Hormuz.<\/p>\n
Chevron said it was working to restore production at its Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG facilities in Western Australia following outages that were likely due to Tropical Cyclone Narelle, a category three storm, which crossed the coast on Friday.<\/p>\n
Gorgon is Australia’s largest LNG export facility, producing 15.6 million tonnes a year with three processing trains, while the smaller Wheatstone consists of two trains producing 8.9 million tonnes.<\/p>\n
Woodside also said production at its Karratha gas plant had been disrupted by the cyclone.<\/p>\n
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Cyclone Narelle expected to turn towards south<\/p>\n
The gas plant is the onshore processing facility for the North \u200cWest Shelf, Australia’s \u200coldest and second-largest LNG project, producing \u206014.3 million tonnes a year, down from 16.9 million tonnes a year after it shut down one of its five production trains.<\/p>\n
MST Marquee analyst Saul Kavonic estimated the cyclone was disrupting more than 30 million tonnes a year of Australian LNG supply.<\/p>\n
Combined with the shock from the Middle East, he said more than a quarter of global LNG supply was affected.<\/p>\n
“This will exacerbate gas market tightness in Asia and Europe, especially if it takes more than a matter of days to normalise Australian production levels again,” Kavonic said.<\/p>\n
A Chevron Australia spokesperson said an outage occurred at the Wheatstone platform, about 225km off Australia’s west coast, on \u2060Thursday, causing a suspension of onshore gas production.<\/p>\n
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“All personnel were demobilised from \u200cthe Wheatstone Platform ahead of the cyclone passing, which has been operated remotely from our Perth office since Tuesday afternoon,” the spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Three hours later, an outage shut down one of three LNG production trains at the \u200cGorgon facility on Barrow Island, about 50km offshore.<\/p>\n
“We will resume full production at both facilities once it is safe to do so,” a Chevron Australia spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
Woodside said production at the North West Shelf project would restart once it is able to send workers back to its offshore facilities.<\/p>\n
It said operations were continuing at its Macedon domestic gas plant and its Pluto LNG facility.<\/p>\n
“If there is any material impact to production or assets, Woodside will update the market,” a spokesperson said.<\/p>\n
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