An outage has taken the third train offline at BP’s Tangguh LNG facility in Indonesia, the country’s upstream regulator, SKK Migas, confirmed on Thursday. The shutdown comes as LNG demand rises in anticipation of the winter season in Europe and Asia.
The incident occurred earlier this week, with BP’s West Papua plant experiencing a disruption in operations. According to SKK Migas spokesperson Hudi Suryodipuro, the plant is expected to resume operations on Saturday.
The issue was traced to a malfunction in the actuator, which required repairs and part replacements after an initial restart attempt, Suryodipuro told Reuters.
The third train at the Tangguh LNG plant has an annual processing capacity of 3.8 million metric tons. It was commissioned in the summer of 2023, with its first cargo shipped last autumn. Earlier this year, Train 3 had another brief shutdown in February due to a broken component that needed replacement.
Tangguh LNG is a joint project that taps into six gas fields in Bintuni Bay, Indonesia, covering the Wiriagar, Berau, and Muturi production sharing contracts.
The outage comes at a critical time, as LNG demand is rising globally ahead of the northern hemisphere’s winter. In recent days, several LNG cargoes originally destined for Asia and Egypt have been redirected to Europe, where natural gas prices are higher than those in Asia.
European gas prices have surged to their highest levels in a year, driven by factors such as the approaching winter heating season, low wind speeds in northwestern Europe, and tensions in the energy market, including a dispute between Austria’s OMV and Russia’s Gazprom. Additionally, the gas transit agreement through Ukraine is set to expire on December 31, 2024, with Ukraine signaling it will not negotiate a renewal.
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