Other stories: Oil industry giants: Saudi Aramco | Top 10 MENA Region mega projects | Top 10 billion dollar oil deals of the summer | 2009’s winners and losers in the oil industry | 10 events in oil’s history that shook the world | Top 10 Gulf mega projects | Top 10 largest publicly traded oil companies | Top 10 National Oil Companies by production | World’s 10 largest oilfield services companies | World’s 10 largest oil and gas contractors
Northern Australia could be the first location for the first of the 10 US$5 billion floating liquefied natural gas vessels being constructed for Royal Dutch Shell by Technip and Samsung Heavy Industries.
“The pioneering floating LNG project is likely to occur somewhere where you have got benign sea conditions and where you have got a stable fiscal and political environment. That sort of sounds like northern Australia to me,” Daryl Houghton, senior LNG consultant at Poten & Partners is quoted by Bloomberg as saying.
However Bloomberg added that the decision where to locate the first vessel, due to come into service for the Anglo-Dutch supermajor in 2015, has not yet been made.
The FLNG vessel will allow Shell to place gas liquefaction facilities directly over offshore gas fields. The company hopes that giving gas producers a cheaper alternative to using pipelines and onshore liquefaction infrastructure will pay off in the long term.
The FLNG concept’s key dimensions are approximately 450 metres x 70 metres, with a 3.5 mtpa LNG capacity, plus associated LPG and condensate production; taking total liquid production potential to over 5 mtpa.
Topsides weight is estimated in excess of 50,000 tonnes. Shell’s FLNG design is suitable for more distant offshore fields, designed to operate under harsh conditions and process a wide range of gas compositions.
