Shell’s Prelude FLNG facility starts its journey to Australia

Royal Dutch Shell’s Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility left the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard in Geoje, South Korea on June 29, 2017. This marks a significant milestone for the project.

Shell cut the first steel for the Prelude floating liquefied natural gas facility’s substructure in October, 2012. The facility, constructed by Technip Samsung Consortium, is being towed to North West Australia, where the next phase of the project will begin.

On arrival at the Prelude offshore gas field, 475 kilometres (295 miles) north-north east of Broome, Western Australia, pre-installed mooring chains will be lifted from the seabed and secured to the facility. Once secure, the hook-up and commissioning process will begin.

Longer than four soccer fields and displacing six times as much water as the largest aircraft carrier, Prelude FLNG is the largest offshore floating facility ever built. Prelude will have a capacity of at least 5.3 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of liquids: 3.6 mtpa of LNG, 1.3 mtpa of condensate and 0.4 mtpa of liquefied petroleum gas. Cash flow from the project is expected in 2018.