SBM Offshore announced that it has been awarded a contract and received the corresponding notice to proceed from Technip (part of the “TSC” Consortium with Samsung Heavy Industries) for the engineering, procurement, construction and integration (EPCI) of a major Turret Mooring System.
This Turret Mooring System will be a key component of the world’s first floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility, to be deployed by Shell Development (Australia) Pty Ltd (Shell) at its Prelude gas field off the northwest coast of Australia.
To be moored some 200 kilometres from the nearest land, the Prelude FLNG facility will produce gas from offshore fields and liquefy it onboard via a cooling process. TSC will undertake the detailed design of this innovative facility which will be built at the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard in Geoje, Korea. SBM Offshore will supply the Turret Mooring System to the shipyard in Korea for integration into the facility.
The Shell Prelude FLNG facility will be the largest floating offshore facility in the world, measuring 488 metres from bow to stern and weighing (when fully loaded) close to 600,000 tonnes. The Turret Mooring System, which will permanently anchor the floating facility at its offshore location and allow it to weathervane, will be the largest SBM Offshore has ever designed and built, with overall dimensions exceeding 30 metres in diameter and 100 metres in height. The facilities will be able to withstand extreme mooring forces resulting from the cyclonic metocean environment.
Floating LNG is a breakthrough innovation that will allow the production, liquefaction, storage and transfer of LNG at sea, helping to open up new offshore natural gas fields that are currently too costly or difficult to develop.
[mappress] Source: SBM Offshore, June 27, 2011; Image: Shell