''Prelude'' FLNG is a
floating liquefied natural gas platform owned by
Shell plc
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New ...
and built by the
Technip–
Samsung
The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...
Consortium (TSC) in South Korea for a joint venture between
Royal Dutch Shell
Shell plc is a British multinational oil and gas company headquartered in London, England. Shell is a public limited company with a primary listing on the London Stock Exchange (LSE) and secondary listings on Euronext Amsterdam and the New ...
,
KOGAS
Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) is a South Korean public natural gas company that was established by the Korean government in 1983. KOGAS has grown into the largest LNG-importing company in the world and operates four LNG regasification terminals ...
, and
Inpex.
The hull was launched in December 2013.
It is long, wide, and made with more than 260,000 tonnes of steel. The vessel displaces around 600,000 t when fully loaded, more than five times the displacement of a . It is the world's largest
floating liquefied natural gas platform as well as the largest offshore facility ever constructed.
Construction
The main
double-hulled
A double hull is a ship hull design and construction method where the bottom and sides of the ship have two complete layers of watertight hull surface: one outer layer forming the normal hull of the ship, and a second inner hull which is some dis ...
structure was built by the Technip Samsung Consortium in the
Samsung Heavy Industries
Samsung Heavy Industries Co., Ltd. ( Korean: 삼성중공업) is one of the largest shipbuilders in the world and one of the "Big Three" shipbuilders of South Korea (including Hyundai and Daewoo). Geoje (in Gyeongsangnam-do) is one of the lar ...
Geoje shipyard in
South Korea
South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia, constituting the southern part of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and sharing a Korean Demilitarized Zone, land border with North Korea. Its western border is formed ...
. Construction was officially started when the first metal was cut for the substructure in October 2012. The Turret Mooring System has been subcontracted to
SBM
SBM may stand for:
Science, technology, international development
* Satellite-based monitoring, transport tracking systems via GPS technologies
* SBm, a type of barred spiral irregular galaxy
* School business manager, member of non-teaching staf ...
and has been built in
Drydocks World Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The MEG reclamation unit by Fjords Processing Norway and built in South Korea is the only topside module subcontracted. Other equipment such as subsea wellheads are being constructed in other places around the world. It was launched on 30 November 2013 with no superstructure (accommodation and process plant).
The vessel is moored by its turret to 16 seabed driven steel piles, each 65 meters long and 5.5 meters in diameter.
Subsea equipment is being built by FMC Technologies, and
Emerson is the main supplier of automation systems and
uninterruptible power supply
An uninterruptible power supply or uninterruptible power source (UPS) is an electrical apparatus that provides emergency power to a load when the input power source or mains power fails. A UPS differs from an auxiliary or emergency power syste ...
systems.
By July 2015, all 14 gas plant modules were installed.
Cost and funding
''Prelude'' FLNG was approved for funding by Shell in 2011.
Analyst estimates in 2013 for the cost of the vessel were between to $12.6 billion.
Shell estimated in 2014 that the project would cost up to per million tons of production capacity.
Competitive pressures from an increase in the long-term production capabilities of North American gas fields due to
hydraulic fracturing
Fracking (also known as hydraulic fracturing, hydrofracturing, or hydrofracking) is a well stimulation technique involving the fracturing of bedrock formations by a pressurized liquid. The process involves the high-pressure injection of "frac ...
technologies and increasing
Russia
Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eigh ...
n export capabilities may reduce the actual profitability of the venture from what was anticipated in 2011.
In 2021 the WAToday news website reported that it was believed that the ship had cost at least , though Shell has never confirmed the actual cost.
Operations
The ''Prelude'' FLNG system was built for use in the Prelude and Concerto
gas fields in the
Browse LNG Basin,
off the coast of Australia; drilling and gas production were planned to begin in 2016.
[ The system has a planned life expectancy of 25 years. The Prelude and Concerto fields are expected to produce 5.3 million tonnes of liquid and condensate per year; this includes 3.6 million tonnes of liquified natural gas, 1.3 million tonnes of condensate, and 400,000 tonnes of liquified petroleum gas.]
Natural gas will be extracted from wells and liquefied by chilling it to . The ability to produce and offload LNG to large LNG carrier
An LNG carrier is a tank ship designed for transporting liquefied natural gas (LNG).
History
The first LNG carrier '' Methane Pioneer'' () carrying , classed by Bureau Veritas, left the Calcasieu River on the Louisiana Gulf coast on 25 Januar ...
s is an important innovation, which reduces costs and removes the need for long pipelines to land-based LNG processing plants. However, fitting all the equipment onto a single floating facility was a significant challenge.
The system is designed to withstand Category 5 cyclones, although workers may be evacuated before that on an EC225 rescue helicopter. According to plans, it will produce 110,000 BOE per day.
On 25 July 2017, after a journey of from its construction site in South Korea, ''Prelude'' arrived on site in Western Australian waters. It was expected to become operational in 2018. On 26 December 2018, Royal Dutch Shell announced that initial production had begun at ''Prelude''. Shell said that wells had been opened and that the start-up and ramp-up phases were underway.
''Prelude'' was shut down in February 2020 after a reported electrical problem. The platform had previously suffered two incidents that saw the unintended release of gas, which NOPSEMA described as "dangerous". It restarted production in January 2021.
The ship's electrical supply was disrupted by a small fire on 2 December 2021. This led to the cessation of production and the evacuation of most of the crew.
As a result of repeated environmental and safety mishaps, NOPSEMA ordered the supermajor to not resume production for an indefinite period of time, pending Shell's ability to prove updated practices. According to NOPSEMA, Shell "did not have a sufficient understanding of the risks of the power system on the facility, including failure mechanisms, interdependencies, and recovery", adding that "power loss directly impacted critical safety systems along with the ability to safely evacuate crew by boat or helicopter."
In April 2022 the vessel resumed operations. Operations were again partially stopped and then fully stopped during a strike which lasted 11 weeks until 25 August 2022.
A Lego
Lego ( , ; stylized as LEGO) is a line of plastic construction toys that are manufactured by The Lego Group, a privately held company based in Billund, Denmark. The company's flagship product, Lego, consists of variously colored interlockin ...
model of ''Prelude'' was built for a Shell trade show in 2014. Nearly 5 meters long, the model currently resides in the foyer of Shell's Perth
Perth is the list of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the Australian states and territories of Australia, state of Western Australia. It is the list of cities in Australia by population, fourth most populous city in Aust ...
head office.
References
External links
*
*{{YouTube , id=HcHhiATEogI , title=Shell: Prelude's maiden voyage
Shell plc
Liquefied natural gas
Natural gas platforms
Floating production storage and offloading vessels
Ships built by Samsung Heavy Industries