Woodside Petroleum Ltd, operator of the North West Shelf liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in Western Australia, plans to a temporary shut-down of the plant's fifth production unit after "teething problems."

It told an investor briefing on Thursday that the maintenance shut-down would happen in the second half of 2009 but gave no more detail on the timing or the duration.

Woodside said technical issues were preventing the fifth unit from reaching its full output capacity and it expected the unit to run at between 80-90 percent of capacity until the shutdown.

The North West Shelf fifth production train first came online on Aug. 31, 2008.

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