Equinor (NYSE:EQNR) said Monday it has stopped production from its Johan Sverdrup oilfield, western Europe's largest with production of ~750K boe/day, helping to boost futures prices.

Brent front-month January crude oil (CO1:COM) trades +2.7% to $72.97/bbl at least partially because of the news, as the outage may tighten the North Sea crude market, as physical supply of North Sea crude underpins the Brent futures complex.

The outage was caused by an onshore power outage caused by smoke developing in an onshore electricity converter station which sends power to the field, a company spokesperson told Reuters.

The company said work is underway to re-establish production, but it is not yet known when output will resume.

Separately, DNB Markets downgraded Equinor (EQNR) to Sell from Hold, saying the company has "limited will of capacity for attractive shareholder distributions" beyond 2025, while seeing "significant weakening" of its cash conversion as renewable capital spending rises.

ETF: (BNO)