The fire broke out shortly before 11 a.m. local time, Norwegian broadcaster NRK reported. Equinor spokesperson Ellen Maria Skjelsbæk said crews first reported smoke and then found flames in the switchboard room, which houses the panels that control and distribute power on the platform. The flames were extinguished, no one was injured, and Equinor has reported the incident to authorities.
Equinor moved between 70 and 80 of the 128 workers on board to nearby installations. "Repairs will be needed, it is too early to say when production can restart," Skjelsbæk said.
Norwegian gas system operator Gassco cut Visund's available capacity to 2.5 million cubic metres per day from 12:53 CET on Wednesday, and to zero for Thursday's gas day. The duration of the outage is listed as uncertain.
Gassco also listed three other unplanned Norwegian outages. Åsgard is down 7.2 million cubic metres per day until Friday morning. Oseberg lost 9.6 million on Wednesday and expects 5.3 million to be unavailable on Thursday, and Troll lost 5.6 million on Wednesday. Norwegian export nominations for Wednesday's gas day stood at 324.8 million cubic metres as of 17:03 CET.
Visund, in the Tampen area northeast of the Gullfaks field, has produced since 1999 and mainly produces gas. It sent 5.1 billion cubic metres of gas to market in 2025, according to the Norwegian Offshore Directorate. The gas flows through the Kvitebjørn pipeline to the Kollsnes processing plant and on to Europe. Equinor operates the field with a 53.2% stake, alongside Petoro (30%), ConocoPhillips (9.1%) and Repsol (7.7%).
European gas prices fell 2% on Wednesday as traders monitored Washington's next move on Iran. The IEA has warned that the global gas crunch could last well into 2027.