Chevron reports LNG outage at Australian plant as strike action escalates - The Associated Press
Chevron reports LNG outage at Australian plant as strike action escalates | AP News
Chevron reports LNG outage at Australian plant as strike action escalates
This photo shows the Chevron LNG project under construction on Barrow Island, Western Australia, on April 11, 2016. A Chevron Corp. liquid national gas plant reported a production outage on Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023 as workers escalated strike action against the U.S. engery giant’s Australian operations that threaten global supply. (Ray Strange/AAP Images via AP)FILE - A Chevron corporate logo is displayed on a gas pump in Flowood, Miss., on June 26, 2019. A Chevron Corp. liquid national gas plant reported a production outage on Thursday, Sept. 14, 2023 as workers escalated strike action against the U.S. engery giant’s Australian operations that threaten global supply. (AP Photo/Rogelio V. Solis, File)
SYDNEY (AP) — A Chevron Corp. liquefied natural gas plant in Australia reported a production outage Thursday as workers escalated a strike action against facilities that provide more than 5% of global LNG supplies.
The U.S. energy giant said in a statement that it was working to resume full production at its Wheatstone facility “following a fault which has impacted about 25% of LNG production.”
“The cause has been identified and restart activities have commenced,” the statement said.
Chevron’s Wheatstone and Gorgon plants in Western Australia state account for more than 5% of global LNG supply.
Chevron did not link the disruption to an escalation Thursday in the strikes at its Wheatstone and Gorgon LNG plants. Around 500 workers at the two Chevron sites have been taking limited strike actions since Sept. 8 in a dispute over wages and conditions.
The Offshore Alliance, a partnership between the Australian Workers’ Union and the Maritime Union of Australia that represents workers in Australia’s offshore oil and gas industry, said on social media that industrial action had “escalated today on the Chevron facilities and will continue to escalate over the coming days and weeks.”
The alliance did not immediately respond when asked Thursday to explain how the industrial campaign had escalated or what was planned.
Chevron lawyers told an industrial court this week that the labor action posed a “significant risk” to production.
Related Knowledge Center: Liquefied natural gas
Driven by plentiful natural gas produced from shale plays, the United States began exporting liquefied natural gas in 2016 when the Sabine Pass terminal in Louisiana opened and shipped its first cargo. Since then, additional capacity, or trains, have been added to Sabine Pass, and terminals have become operational in Cameron Parish, La.; Hackberry, La.; Cove Point, Md.; and Corpus Christi, Texas. The Energy Information Administration projects that U.S. LNG export capacity will reach 8.9 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) by the end of 2019, making it the third largest in the world, behind Australia and Qatar. The tariff war with China has the potential to impact some final investment decisions for additional terminals in the coming months.