World’s Largest FLNG Facility Starts Production

Royal Dutch Shell’s Prelude FLNG facility, the world’s largest floating liquefied gas facility, has commenced production offshore Western Australia.

“Today the wells have been opened at the Prelude FLNG facility and the initial phase of production has commenced,” INPEX, who is involved in developing the project in Block WA44-L in partnership with Shell and other project companies, said in a statement.

The Prelude FLNG facility will separate and liquefy the gas produced from the well to produce LNG, liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and condensate. These products will then be directly loaded from the FLNG facility onto tankers and shipped in sequence.

Prelude FLNG was built at South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries’ Geoje shipyard. The 488-meter-long facility arrived in Australia in September 2017, after a journey of nearly 6,000 kilometers.

The giant gas production facility received its first gas on board in June this year when Gallina, an LNG carrier from Singapore, imported gas to Prelude FLNG.

It was the first time a vessel had berthed side by side with Prelude and tested its offloading arms.