Shell to go ahead with world's first floating liquefied natural gas vessel
21 May 2011
Royal Dutch Shell yesterday said that it would go ahead with the Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) platform at its Prelude Project in Australia - the world's first floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) vessel ever put to sea.
The board of Netherlands-based Shell took the final investment decision on the Prelude FLNG project in Australia that will be moored 200km from the nearest land in Australia, the FLNG facility will produce gas from offshore fields, and liquefy it onboard by cooling.
The decision means that Shell is now ready to start detailed design and construction of what will be the world's largest floating offshore facility, in a ship yard in South Korea, said Shell, Europe's largest oil company.
The FLNG project will cost more than $10 billion to build and when completed, be able to process natural gas equivalent 110,000 barrels of oil per day. Shell discovered the Prelude gas field in 2007.
From bow to stern, Shell's FLNG facility will be 488 metres long, longer than four soccer fields laid end to end. When fully equipped and with its storage tanks full, it will weigh around 600,000 tonnes – roughly six times as much as the largest aircraft carrier. Some 260,000 tonnes of that weight will consist of steel – around five times more than was used to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
The facility has been designed to withstand the severest cyclones. Ocean-going LNG carriers will offload liquefied gas, chilled to minus 162 Celsius and shrunk in volume by 600 times, and other products, directly from the facility out at sea for delivery to markets worldwide. Until now, the liquefaction of offshore gas has always involved piping the gas to a land-based plant.