Interruption to gas supply leaves Gib in the dark

An interruption to the gas supply at the North Mole power station triggered a Gibraltar-wide power cut on Thursday evening.

The outage started at around 6pm and it was close to 9pm before power started to be restored.

The outage hit businesses, bars and restaurants on a night when many were filled with football fans waiting to watch the first match of the 2026 World Cup.

The blackout came too as gaming bosses gathered in Gibraltar for the annual KPMG Gaming Summit, with the Government championing the certainty and opportunities that arise from the treaty.

The Gibraltar Government said that at the time of the incident, three engines were running. Two were operating on gas and one was operating in dual-fuel mode.

The interruption to the gas supply affected the operation of the engines and resulted in a loss of generation, which led to the power outage.

The Battery Energy Storage System, which was installed recently to ensure continued supply in the event of unexpected outages, responded as designed.

But the sudden loss of generation exceeded the level of power that the BESS was able to absorb and stabilise at that moment.

“The system is capable of managing up to 14MW of power - the equivalent power needed if one engine failed - but the incident resulted in a loss beyond that capacity, meaning that the BESS was unable to prevent the interruption to supply,” the Government said in the statement.

Gemma Arias Vasquez, the Minister with responsibility for the Gibraltar Electricity Authority, immediately attended the North Mole Power Station following the outage.

As a result, she was unable to attend the King’s Birthday Parade, which was taking place in Casemates at the same time.

She remained at the power station to oversee the recovery operation.

Speaking on GBC later that evening, she said she was disheartened by the outage but gave assurances that the Government would work to establish the cause and ensure any additional measures were put in place to avoid a repetition.

The Gibraltar Electricity Authority responded immediately and worked to restore power as swiftly as possible.

“The Government and the GEA are reviewing the circumstances surrounding the interruption to the gas supply to establish the precise cause and to ensure that any necessary follow-up action is taken,” the statement said.

“The Gibraltar Electricity Authority apologises to members of the public and businesses for the inconvenience caused and thanks the GEA teams for their swift response.”

The px group, which operates the re-gasification plant that supplies gas to the power station, also apologised for the incident.

“This afternoon's power failure in Gibraltar arose from an apparent failure of equipment, which controls the supply of liquid natural gas from the px operated re-gasification plant to the power station,” a px spokesperson said.

“We apologise for this failure and are working hard to resolve the problem, to understand the exact cause and to prevent a recurrence.”