Norway’s Equinor has halted all output from its Johan Sverdrup oilfield, reputedly the largest producing field in western Europe, due to an outage in the offshore power system, reported Reuters.
The shutdown occurred on Tuesday.
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Without providing further details, a company spokesperson stated: “Repair work has been initiated, and we are working on a restart plan.”
This outage may offer support for oil prices, which were already under pressure on Tuesday amid concerns regarding global demand, particularly as new US tariffs on China took effect, reported the news outlet.
Johan Sverdrup was pumping up to 755,000 barrels of oil per day (bopd) in 2024, and the company indicated last year that production was expected to decline from this peak level in early 2025.
Equinor operates the field with a 42.63% stake in the Sverdrup licence, while Aker BP holds 31.57%, Petoro has a 17.36% interest and TotalEnergies holds the remaining 8.44%.
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By GlobalDataIn November last year, power supply to Johan Sverdrup was disrupted.
Following the power outage on 18 November, Equinor and its partners managed to resume production at the oilfield, achieving approximately two-thirds of its capacity by mid-morning on 19 November 2024.
The initial production halt occurred due to an outage at the onshore electrical converter station, which disrupted power supply to the offshore platforms.
The cause of the outage was identified as overheating at the converter station at Kaarstoe, south-west Norway.
The Johan Sverdrup field is situated in the Utsira High area in the North Sea, approximately 160km west of Stavanger, in water depths of 110–120m, covering an area of 200km².
