Shell lays keel for world’s first floating LNG project

Shell lays keel for world’s first Floating LNG project - photo shell.com

When complete, Prelude is expected to be the largest offshore floating facility ever built. The hull will now be assembled in the dry dock, before the turret and the topsides are fitted at Samsung Heavy Industries’ Geoje shipyard in South Korea.

“This is a key milestone in Prelude’s story,” said Rob Kretzers, Shell Executive Vice President Projects. “Innovative thinking and leading edge technology, as well as hard work from those at Shell and our partners, have helped us reach this significant point in construction. Prelude’s size and scale is unprecedented and I look forward to seeing this enormous structure take shape. Shell is pioneering FLNG which has the potential to revolutionise the way natural gas resources are developed”.

FLNG will allow Shell to produce natural gas at sea, turn it into liquefied natural gas and then transfer it directly to the ships that will transport it to customers. It will open up new opportunities for countries looking to develop their gas resources and bring more natural gas to market.

Large steel sections known as “blocks” that will form the hull are being manufactured in the Geoje shipyard, with more than 1,600 already complete. The 93-metre high turret mooring system is under construction in Dubai and will be transported to Geoje in five parts. The turret will run vertically through one end of the facility and will be anchored to the seabed by four groups of mooring lines. It will allow the facility to rotate with the direction of the wind.

Once complete, the 600,000 tonnes facility will be almost half a kilometre in length (488 metres or 1,601 feet), which is longer than four soccer fields, and will displace six times as much water as the largest aircraft carrier. It will be moored and hooked up to the undersea infrastructure, around 475 kilometres north-east of Broome, Western Australia.