Woodside Petroleum has halted production at its Pluto LNG plant in Western Australia after a cyclone detached a nearby drilling rig.
The Atwood Osprey semi submersible drilling rig drifted around five kilometres after being knocked loose during Cyclone Olwyn on Thursday.
Australia's largest pure play oil and gas producer said it had temporarily stopped production at Pluto on Friday as a precaution.
"Pluto's not normally manned and the rig was unmanned, which is normal practice, as the cyclone came through," a Woodside spokeswoman said.
The company plans to restart production when the rig has been moved away from infrastructure at the Pluto plant on the Burrup Peninsula, but was unable to say when that may occur.
"There's no guidance at the moment," the spokeswoman said.
The Atwood Osprey, which is operated by Atwood Oceanics, is contracted to Chevron.
Atwood said the rig was now stable with a support vessel in position.
"Preliminary results indicate minimal damage with an estimated maximum of 30 days out of service time for repairs," the company said.
Woodside's Pluto and North West Shelf operations are responsible for the majority of the company's LNG production.
Comment is being sought from Chevron about whether its $38 billion Wheatstone project has been affected by the incident.
Shares in Woodside were 76 cents, or 2.2 per cent, lower at $33.99 while the energy sector was around two per cent lower.
CMC Market analyst Michael McCarthy said it appeared that investors were unphased by the announcement, as the stock traded in line with its oil and gas peers following a dip in the oil price.
"It might slow production rates this year but that gets pushed into next year so the net result is very little change," Mr McCarthy said.
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