Santos Halts Barossa, Darwin LNG Amid Global Supply Crunch
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- Santos shut down its newly-commissioned Barossa LNG plant on Tuesday and placed the Darwin LNG export plant under "temporary shutdown" to replace equipment on the offshore production vessel that feeds the export facility.
- Santos told the Australian Financial Review it was not immediately clear when production at Barossa or exports from Darwin could resume, and Barossa is designed to backfill Darwin as legacy gas supplies decline.
- Barossa shipped its first LNG cargo to Japan just two months ago, marking the project's commercial start-up—making the halt especially abrupt for buyers who had only just begun receiving Australian supply.
- Worldwide LNG exports have plunged to a six-month low as Middle Eastern supply collapsed, with Qatar the primary driver of lost global volume and additional losses from the United Arab Emirates.
- QatarEnergy said Iranian missile strikes on the Ras Laffan LNG complex—the world's single largest LNG-producing facility—will cost roughly $20 billion per year in lost revenue and take up to five years to repair.
- The Strait of Hormuz is de facto closed, choking shipments from both Qatar and the UAE and leaving Asia-facing buyers with fewer alternatives as Australia's new volumes also go offline.
Why it matters: Barossa was designed to backfill Darwin as legacy gas declines, so a temporary halt cuts volumes meant to anchor Australia's LNG export base. With Qatar offline and the Strait of Hormuz de facto closed, the outage removes supply from three of the world's major LNG hubs at once—Asia buyers who had just received Barossa's first cargo to Japan two months ago now have one fewer alternative to fall back on.
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