A Shell safety engineer turned whistleblower has accused Australia's offshore oil and gas regulator, NOPSEMA, of failing to properly investigate a serious 2021 power failure at Shell's Prelude floating LNG facility.
Irina Woodhead - who is still embroiled in complex court proceedings in London following her dismissal by Shell - obtained NOPSEMA's Investigation Report (IVT11026) through a Freedom of Information request in April 2025. She says the report contradicts Shell's own Terms of Reference (TOR) report, which had outlined a detailed internal investigation—one that was expected to include a clear problem statement, timeline, causal tree and examination of technical, behavioural and systemic issues.
Shell's TOR specifically tasked the company with determining the root cause of the December 2, 2021 shutdown, investigating smoke in the UPS 214 room, and identifying the reasons for ongoing power instability—factors that go beyond what NOPSEMA ultimately addressed.
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Despite the incident disabling critical systems and raising major safety concerns, NOPSEMA concluded that the "robustness of the facility power system is inadequately understood" and stated that identifying root causes was outside the scope of its investigation. Nevertheless, Shell was allowed to resume operations, prompting fresh questions about the depth and independence of the regulator's oversight.
Woodhead says this disconnect between Shell's internal expectations and NOPSEMA's limited review undermines confidence in the safety framework governing Australia's offshore facilities—especially given that NOPSEMA had previously warned Shell not to restart Prelude beyond essential operations until power reliability was proven.
A Shell spokesperson told ENB: "We complied with NOPSEMA's directions in relation to the 2021 power outage on Prelude.
"We are satisfied that the respective investigations by the regulator and our own internal review comprehensively resolved causes in relation to the incident.
NOPSEMA has not been able to provide a response to ENB's questions. This article will be updated if a response is received.
