The Inpex -operated Ichthys LNG project has integrated the lower turret with the project’s floating production, storage and offloading facility in November last year.
Having travelled from Singapore, the 4,200 tonne, 31 metre-tall turret structure was inserted into the hull of the FPSO, which is currently under construction at Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering in Okpo, South Korea.
The turret also provides the semi-submersible FPSO with its mooring system, with mooring lines connecting directly to the turret and not the facility, so that it can withstand cyclonic weather conditions. It also gives the FPSO its ability to weathervane, because the facility will rotate around its turret.
Once complete, the facility will be towed 5,600 km to the Ichthys Field in the Browse Basin, offshore Western Australia, where it will be permanently moored to the seabed for the life of the project.
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LNG World News Staff; Image: Inpex