On June 4th, Cailianshe reported (Editor: Xia Junxiong) that on Monday local time, an important liquefied natural gas (LNG) export facility in Australia stopped production, which could further tighten global natural gas supply. Previously, an unexpected shutdown occurred at a natural gas plant in Norway, the largest natural gas supplier in Europe.

Australia is one of the largest LNG exporting countries in the world. Chevron has two LNG plants in the country, Wheatstone and Gorgon, which together account for about 5% to 7% of global LNG supply. Wheatstone can export 8.9 million tons of LNG annually, while Gorgon's export capacity is 15.6 million tons.

Insiders revealed that one of the three installations at Gorgon has stopped production. Gorgon LNG plant just resumed full production on Friday, and for most of May, one of its installations was in maintenance mode.

It is not yet known when Gorgon LNG plant can resume full production.

Also on Monday, the Nyhamna gas processing plant in Norway reported an unexpected shutdown, and the flow of natural gas from the North Sea to the Easington terminal in the UK dropped to zero. One-third of the UK's natural gas supply relies on this pipeline. This caused Dutch near-month natural gas futures (TTF), which serve as Europe's benchmark, to rise by more than 12% on Monday.

After the 2022 Russia-Ukraine conflict escalated, the EU significantly reduced its natural gas imports from Russia, and Norway became the largest natural gas supplier in Europe.

Before the Russia-Ukraine conflict erupted, natural gas from Russia accounted for more than 40% of the EU's total consumption, but this proportion dropped sharply to 15% in 2023. In addition to Norway, the EU also imported a large amount of natural gas from the United States to make up for the shortfall in Russian natural gas.