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Cyclone Narelle
EventAU

Cyclone Narelle

Category-5 Western Australian cyclone; took Wheatstone LNG offline in April 2026.

Last refreshed: 15 April 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic

Key Question

How much LNG supply did Cyclone Narelle remove from the market and for how long?

Timeline for Cyclone Narelle

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Common Questions
What damage did Cyclone Narelle cause to Australian LNG?
Cyclone Narelle knocked the Wheatstone LNG facility (8.9 Mtpa) offline in April 2026. Combined with Qatar Force majeure at Ras Laffan, the outage redirected 8 LNG cargoes from Europe to Asia.Source: Lowdown
When will Australian LNG production recover after Cyclone Narelle?
No restart timeline for Wheatstone had been confirmed by mid-April 2026. Gorgon, a separate facility, had already restarted on 29 March 2026 after planned maintenance.Source: Lowdown

Background

Cyclone Narelle struck Western Australia's northwest coast in April 2026 as a category-5 system, causing significant structural damage to the Wheatstone LNG facility near Onslow. The outage removed the 8.9 Mtpa facility from production with no confirmed restart timeline, tightening global LNG supply at a moment when European buyers were already competing against Asian demand at JKM-TTF parity. The supply shock contributed to eight LNG cargoes being diverted from European to Asian buyers in the week of 7-10 April 2026.

Cyclone season in the Northwest Shelf region (November to April) is a known operational risk for Australian LNG operators. Wheatstone, Gorgon, and the North West Shelf project all operate in the Carnarvon Basin, which is periodically exposed to category-4 and 5 systems. Safety protocols require production shutdown when sustained winds exceed operational thresholds.

The timing was particularly damaging for European energy security: Narelle struck while German storage was at 23.32% and EU aggregate storage was at its lowest April level since 2018. The combination of the Australian supply shock with Qatar Force majeure declarations at Ras Laffan narrowed the spot LNG options available to European buyers simultaneously.