Shell Said to Evacuate Staff From Australian LNG Plant After Outage


Stephen Stapczynski and Matthew Burgess
Sun, December 5, 2021,

(Bloomberg) -- Royal Dutch Shell Plc has evacuated non-essential staff from its floating liquefied natural gas facility in northwest Australia as the operator struggled to restore power that knocked out operations earlier in the week, according to people familiar with the matter.

The delay in bringing essential power generators back online at the Prelude LNG export plant had left workers without ventilation, potable water services and a sewage treatment system, said one of the people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity as they’re not authorized to speak to media. The evacuation of non-essential staff was assisted by Inpex Corp.’s helicopter and rescue vessel, the people said.

Shell said in an emailed statement that work to restore main power is underway, without commenting on the evacuation.

The world’s biggest floating LNG plant suspended production and delayed the loading of a prompt cargo on Friday after suffering an issue that tripped power at the facility. The evacuation indicates that the plant could be shut for longer than originally anticipated, exacerbating a global shortage of natural gas.

Shell and its partners are now considering canceling the scheduled LNG cargo loading due to the ongoing power issue, one of the people said.