Weeks-Long Australian LNG Outage Will Further Tighten Supply

A weeks-long outage at a major Australian liquefied natural gas export plant has dealt a further blow to a global market still reeling from the halt of operations in Qatar.

Storm damage to Chevron Corp.’s Wheatstone gas plant is hampering efforts to restart operations and the facility won’t be back online fully for “a number of weeks,” the company said Sunday. The facility accounted for 2.4% of global LNG trade in February, shipping 11 cargoes — of which 10 went to Japan and one to Thailand, according to advisory EnergyQuest.