A fire that broke out Monday at Equinor ASA’s Hammerfest liquefied natural gas (LNG) terminal in northern Norway has forced the company to shut down the plant indefinitely, compounding unplanned supply outages elsewhere in the world. 

The fire broke out in one of the turbines that power the 4.3 million metric tons per year (mmty) facility, said Equinor spokesperson Eskil Eriksen. “We do not know when the plant will be back in operations, and we are now concentrating on getting an overview of the damages,” he told NGI Wednesday. 

Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority also said it is investigating the incident. It’s unclear what caused the fire. No injuries were reported. 

According to operational data posted on Equinor’s website, the company has listed a tentative end date for the event of Oct. 28. The company said 18 million cubic meters/day of natural gas volumes have been impacted by the blaze. Hammerfest, which receives and liquefies natural gas from the Snohvit field in the Barents Sea, has been offline since Sept. 11 for maintenance that ended this week just before the fire occurred. ClipperData noted that the last loading there occurred Sept. 10. 

“LNG prices have been supported of late by supply issues in the U.S. and Australia, and this incident is providing further bullish sentiment in the short term,” ClipperData said. Two LNG vessels were near the facility on Tuesday. By Wednesday, the Arctic Voyager was sailing away and the Arctic Lady was still floating near Hammerfest, the firm said.

The outage, along with cooler weather, helped push European prompt month prices up on Monday, said energy trading group Energi Danmark. Both the Dutch Title Transfer Facility in northwest Europe and the National Balancing Point in the UK gained nearly a quarter Monday, but they’ve since retreated.

“Initially, gas markets headed higher yesterday while a recent fire at the Norwegian LNG facility Hammerfest and the anticipated outage lasting at least a month sent an according impulse,” Energi Danmark said in a note Wednesday. “Eventually, prices turned around though, dipping below Monday’s close. While softer emissions weighed on the broader sentiment, gas also took direction from slumping oil prices. While the support from seasonal demand picking up is still in play, we might see some additional downward moves today.”

Prompt prices did in fact decline again on Wednesday. November TTF settled at $4.567/MMBtu, down from $4.692 on Tuesday. NBP finished at $4.774, down from $4.911 Tuesday.

Prompt prices did in fact decline again on Wednesday. November TTF settled at $4.567/MMBtu, down from $4.692 on Tuesday. NBP finished at $4.774, down from $4.911 Tuesday.

Outages at Cameron LNG in Louisiana and Gorgon LNG in Australia are also adding to the supply crunch. Cameron has been offline since Aug. 26 when it was shut down to brace for Hurricane Laura, which caused damage on the Gulf Coast. The facility started taking feed gas again last Sunday, but it’s unclear when commercial operations would resume as work remains, including dredging of the ship channel to access the terminal. 

Gorgon’s Train 2 has been offline since May when welding cracks were discovered in the propane heat exchangers. Repairs aren’t expected to be complete until next month, and Trains 1 and 3 could also need repairs once Train 2 is brought back online. 

Both Cameron and Gorgon have the capacity to produce roughly 15 mmty of LNG.