Four months after it took its first dip in the open waters, the world’s first floating liquid natural gas (FLNG) facility has reached yet another milestone.
The $7.3billion-plus Prelude FLNG has been tested for one of its key future capabilities: offloading of the liquid gas deposits stored on board.
Currently constructed at South Korea’s Geoje shipyard, Prelude will produce natural gas at sea, turn it into liquefied natural gas and then transfer it directly onto a carrier vessel for transport, at estimated volumes of 3.6million tonnes per year.
The vessel’s operator Shell faces the difficult task of shrinking the gas plant from a Western Australia basin to quarter of its size and squeezing it onto the hull of the 488-metres-long structure, before carefully transferring it onto the carriers which will deliver the load onshore.
To make sure the job can be done, Shell has tested a marine loading arm developed by FMC Technologies at the constructor’s French facility in Sens, at conditions imitating the violent movement of two vessels offshore.
But did the technology pass the test? Watch Shell’s video below.
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