Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Asustek and other laptop retailers are facing a shortage of laptop batteries because of a recent fire at the LG Chem Ochang plant in South Korea, a major supplier of the said item.

To give you guys an idea of the severity of the problem, an executive from Asustek gave word that the shortage could possibly affect up to 40 percent of second-quarter shipments. No word from them yet if this means that their laptops will also be increasing in price.

Dell, the second largest computer manufacturer in the world, has already started charging more for their laptop battery replacements.  A spokesman from the company, Jess Blackburn, was contacted by Reuters regarding the current shortage. He gave a few interesting comments regarding this:

The industry is experiencing battery supply constraints because of these [the fire] problems. Therefore, pricing is being impacted by current availability. But we are working with our partners throughout our supply chain to reduce the impact on our customers.

Even Hewlett-Packard has been feeling a bit of the heat. A spokesman for the company, Mike Hockey, said that  "the full extent of the impact to HP and other original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) is still being determined."

While this seems like a rather big blow to the mobile computing industry, the manufactures are currently working on ways to secure more battery cells.