Equinor's massive Sverdrup oilfield shut by power outage

Norway's Equinor has halted output from its Johan Sverdrup oilfield in the North Sea, western Europe's largest producing field, due to a power outage, a company spokesperson said on Tuesday.

The outage was caused by smoke development in an onshore switchboard room connected to an electricity converter station that sends power to the offshore Sverdrup field, Equinor said.

"The incident was quickly clarified and we are now working to restore power," the spokesperson added.

The power outage, the second in one week, was expected to last until 16:15 GMT on Tuesday, according to a regulatory statement posted on the Nord Pool website.

Brent crude futures, already on the rise amid concerns over Russian and Iranian oil supply and sanctions threats, edged higher following news of the outage.

Sverdrup is expected to produce around 720,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day on average in 2025, close to its level in 2023-2024, Equinor said last week.

(Reporting by Terje Solsvik, editing by Nora Buli, Nerijus Adomaitis, Alexandra Hudson)