A Shell spokesperson confirmed to Energy News that a small fire in a cabinet in an electrical utility area triggered the automatic fire detection and management systems onboard the facility at around 11pm last night. 

"The fire was extinguished by the systems in place without spreading further. All workers onboard the facility are safe and accounted for," she said. 

Shell said the incident caused the loss of main power on the facility and it is currently running on backup diesel generators. 

"While work is underway to restore main power, production on the Prelude has been suspended temporarily," the spokesperson said, without saying when the company expected production to restart. 

The fire has ended the 11-month production streak Shell's A$24 billion facility was on, after being shut in for most of last year due to a slew of technical issues. 

The facility hit its nameplate capacity of 3.6 million tonnes of LNG per annum in the middle of this year. 

Prelude has become notorious for the poor conditions faced by its workers. 

Allegations have ranged from falling ice striking workers, breaches of fatigue management standards, and, the forging of rope-access documents. 

A NOPSEMA spokesperson told Energy News the regulator was investigating the latest incident. 

"We are aware of an incident, we don't have all of the details at the moment," she said.

"We understand from Shell that all essential services have been restored and at this stage we don't have a full picture at this stage but we are investigating."