A floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility is a floating production storage and offloading unit that conducts liquefied natural gas (LNG) operations for developing offshore natural gas resources. Floating above an offshore natural gas field, the FLNG facility produces liquefied stores and transfers LNG (and potentially LPG and condensate) at sea before carriers ship it directly to markets.

Recent developments in liquefied natural gas (LNG) industry require relocation of conventional LNG processing trains into the sea to unlock remote, smaller gas fields that would not be economical to develop otherwise, reduce capital expenses, and impact to environment.[1] Emerging new type of FLNG facilities will be used. Unlike floating production storage and offloading units (FPSOs), they will also allow full scale deep processing, same as onshore LNG plant has to offer but squeezed to 25% of its footprint.[2] The first 3 FLNG's were constructed in 2016: Prelude FLNG (Shell), PFLNG1 and PFLNG2 (Petronas).

History

Studies into offshore LNG production have been conducted since the early 1970s, but it was only in the mid-1990s that significant research backed by experimental development began.[3]

In 1997, Mobil developed an FLNG production concept based on a large, square structure (540 by 540 feet (160 m × 160 m)) with a moonpool in the center,[4] commonly known as "The Doughnut". The Mobil proposal was sized to produce 6,000,000 tonnes (6,600,000 tons) LNG per year produced from 7,400,000 cubic metres (260,000,000 cu ft) per year of feed gas, with storage provided on the structure for 250,000 cubic metres (66,000,000 US gal) of LNG and 103,000 cubic metres (27,000,000 US gal) of condensate.[4]

In 1999, a major study was commissioned as a joint project by Chevron Corporation and several other oil and gas companies.[5] This was closely followed by the so-called 'Azure' research project, conducted by the EU and several oil and gas companies.[6] Both projects made great progress in steel concrete hull design, topside development and LNG transfer systems.[3]

Projects 2010—2020

Royal Dutch Shell

In July 2009, Royal Dutch Shell signed an agreement with Technip and Samsung allowing for the design, construction and installation of multiple Shell FLNG facilities.[7]

In April 2010, Shell announced that it had been selected to develop the Greater Sunrise gas fields in the Timor Sea, making it Shell's second FLNG facility after Prelude.[8] The project was scheduled to begin processing gas in 2016.[9]

Royal Dutch Shell announced a 12 billion AUD (8.71 billion USD) investment on 20 May 2011 to build Prelude FLNG.[9] Construction began in October 2012.[10] Prelude became the world's first FLNG facility, anchored 200 kilometres (120 mi) off the shore of Western Australia.[11]

432 m Coral South FLNG for Mozambic[12]

Petronas

In February 2011, Petronas awarded a FEED contract for an FLNG unit to a consortium of Technip and Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering[13] for a facility in Malaysia.[14] It installed its first FLNG, PFLNG Satu, in the Kanowit gas field off the shore of Sarawak, Malaysia. It loaded its first cargo was onto the 150,200-cbm Seri Camellia LNG carrier on 3 April 2017.[15][16]

Planned projects

Petrobras invited three consortiums to submit proposals for engineering, procurement and construction contracts for FLNG plants in ultra-deep Santos Basin waters during 2009. A final investment decision was expected in 2011.[17]

As of November 2010, Japan's Inpex planned to leverage FLNG to develop the Abadi gas field in the Masela block of the Timor Sea, with a final investment decision expected by the end of 2013.[18] Late in 2010, Inpex deferred start-up by two years to 2018 and cut its 'first phase' capacity to 2.5 million tons per year (from a previously proposed capacity of 4.5 million tonnes).[18]

As of November 2010, Chevron Corporation was considering an FLNG facility to develop offshore discoveries in the Exmouth Plateau of Western Australia,[19] while in 2011, ExxonMobil was waiting for an appropriate project to launch its FLNG development.[20]

According to a presentation given by their engineers at GASTECH 2011, ConocoPhillips aimed to implement a facility by 2016–19, and had completed the quantitative risk analysis of a design that would undergo pre-FEED study during the remainder of 2011.[21]

GDF Suez Bonaparte – a joint venture undertaken by the Australian oil and gas exploration company Santos (40%) and the French multi-international energy company GDF Suez (60%) – initialled awarded a pre-FEED contract for the Bonaparte FLNG project offshore Northern Australia. The first phase of the project calls for a floating LNG production facility with a capacity of 2 million mt/year, with a final investment decision is expected in 2014 and startup planned for 2018.[22] However, in June 2014, GDF Suez and Santos Limited made a decision to halt development. A part of the decision included the perception that long-term capabilities of North American gas fields due to hydraulic fracturing technologies and increasing Russian export capabilities would adversely affect the profitability of the venture due to competition.[9]

In October 2016, Exmar NV performance tested a facility designed by Black & Veatch. The facility has a single liquefaction train that can produce 72 million cubic feet a day of LNG.[23]

On 4 June 2018, Golar LNG announced that their FLNG Hilli Episeyo had got a customer acceptance after successfully being tested in 16 days commissioning. FLNG Hilli Episeyo will serve Parenco Cameroon SA in Cameroon's water. FLNG Hilli Episeyo is designed by Black & Veatch and was built in Keppel Shipyard in Singapore.[24]

Fortuna FLNG, to be commissioned in 2020, is owned by a joint venture between Ophir Energy and Golar LNG is under development in Equatorial Guinea. When operational, it is expected to produce around 2.2 million tonnes per year of gas and to be the first FLNG to operate in Africa.[25]

Challenges

Moving LNG production to an offshore setting presents a demanding set of challenges. In terms of the design and construction of the FLNG facility, every element of a conventional LNG facility needs to fit into an area roughly one quarter the size, whilst maintaining appropriate levels of safety and giving increased flexibility to LNG production.[26]

Once a facility is in operation, wave motion will present another major challenge.[27] LNG containment systems need to be capable of withstanding the damage that can occur when the sea's wave and current motions cause sloshing in the partly filled tanks. Product transfers also need to deal with the effects of winds, waves and currents in the open seas.[4]

Solutions to reduce the effect of motion and weather are addressed in the design, which must be capable of withstanding – and even reducing – the impact of waves. In this area, technological development has been mainly evolutionary rather than revolutionary, leveraging and adapting technologies that are currently applied to offshore oil production or onshore liquefaction. For example, traditional LNG loading arms have been adapted to enable LNG transfers in open water, and hose-based solutions for both side-by-side transfers in calmer seas and tandem transfers in rougher conditions are nearing fruition.[28]

Advantages

Among fossil fuels, natural gas is relatively clean burning.[29] It is also abundant, and has been affordable[30] most of the time. It may be able to meet some of the world's energy needs by realising the potential of otherwise unviable gas reserves (several of which can be found offshore North West Australia).[31] FLNG technology also provides a number of environmental and economic advantages:

FLNG or FPSO diagram
  • Environmental - Because all processing is done at the gas field, there is no need to lay long pipelines all the way to the shore. There is also no requirement for compression units to pump the gas to shore, dredging and jetty construction or the onshore construction of an LNG processing plant, all of which significantly reduce the project's environmental footprint.[32] Avoiding construction also helps preserve marine and coastal environments. Additionally, environmental disturbance would be minimised during the later decommissioning of the facility, because it could be disconnected easily and removed before being refurbished and re-deployed elsewhere.
  • Economic – Where pumping gas to shore can be prohibitively expensive, FLNG makes development economically viable. As a result, it will open up new business opportunities for countries to develop offshore gas fields that would otherwise remain stranded, such as those off the coast of East Africa.[33] FLNG is also conducive to side stepping complexities involving neighboring countries where disputes would make pipelines vulnerable or impractical such as in Cyprus, Israel and Europe. Moreover, LNG is slowly gaining its role as direct use fuel without regasification with operational cost and least pollution benefits in road, rail, air and marine transport.[34][35]

Operation

The FLNG facility will be moored directly above the natural gas field. It will route gas from the field to the facility via risers.[36] When the gas reaches the facility, it will be processed to produce natural gas, LPG, and natural gas condensate. The processed feed gas will be treated to remove impurities, and liquefied through freezing, before being stored in the hull. Ocean-going carriers will offload the LNG, as well as the other liquid by-products, for delivery to markets worldwide.[37] The conventional alternative to this would be to pump gas through pipelines to a shore-based facility for liquefaction, before transferring the gas for delivery.[3]

References

  1. ↑ "A REVOLUTION IN NATURAL GAS PRODUCTION". Shell. Archived from the original on 8 January 2016. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  2. ↑ "Why FLNG?". Shell Australia. Retrieved 30 December 2015.
  3. 1 2 3 "Offshore LNG Production, How to Make it Happen - LNG Review 2005". Archived from the original on 1 August 2009. Retrieved 20 May 2011.
  4. 1 2 3 "Mobil's Floating LNG Plant" (PDF). 1998. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
  5. ↑ "Offshore LNG Production – How to Make it Happen" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 1 October 2011. Retrieved 20 May 2011.
  6. ↑ Article by John Bradbury (1 May 2001). "Floaters considered for stranded gas". Epmag.com. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  7. ↑ "Shell awards floating LNG contracts to Technip and Samsung". Technip. 28 July 2009. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  8. ↑ "Shell floating LNG technology chosen by joint venture for Greater Sunrise project - Shell Worldwide". Shell.com. Archived from the original on 29 May 2011. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  9. 1 2 3 Kelly, Ross (19 June 2014). "GDF Suez, Santos Halt Innovative LNG Plan in Australia : Companies Say Offshore Conversion Project Not Commercially Viable". The Wall Street Journal. Retrieved 30 December 2014. The decision highlights the risks confronting Australian gas-export projects as they grapple with high costs and competition from North America and Russia, which are vying to provide Asian utilities with cleaner-burning fuels. Confidence in "floating" liquefied natural gas may also be diminishing—two years before a Royal Dutch Shell PLC-owned vessel is due to begin processing gas for the first time.
  10. ↑ "$12bn Prelude floating plant has Shell fired for LNG". The Australian. Retrieved 28 October 2012.
  11. ↑ "PETRONAS launches hull of its first floating LNG facility". Petronas.com.my. 7 April 2014. Retrieved 17 September 2014.
  12. ↑ "Coral-Sul FLNG - Imo 9831684".
  13. ↑ "Technip, Daewoo win FEED contract on Petronas' FLNG vessel offshore Malaysia". Asia Top News. Archived from the original on 6 April 2016. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  14. ↑ "awarded a key engineering contract for an FLNG in Malaysia". Technip. 1 February 2011. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  15. ↑ "Malaysia's Petronas in FLNG first". LNG World News. Retrieved 20 February 2018.
  16. ↑ "Petronas' PFLNG Satu produces first LNG offshore Malaysia". 9 December 2016.
  17. ↑ "Petrobras dishes out FLNG FEEDs". Upstream Online. 21 December 2009. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  18. 1 2 "UPDATE 1-Inpex delays Indonesia LNG output start by 2 years | Reuters". Uk.reuters.com. 21 December 2010. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  19. ↑ "Chevron considers floating LNG plant". The Australian. 3 November 2010. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  20. ↑ Guegel, Anthony (3 May 2011). "ExxonMobil in icy innovation". Upstream Online. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  21. ↑ "Belanak FPSO – 5 years of Successful Operation and Its Application to Floating LNG" (PDF). Kgu.or.kr. Archived from the original (PDF) on 24 March 2012. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
  22. ↑ "Pre-FEED contracts awarded for Bonaparte LNG" (PDF). Santos.com. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
  23. ↑ EconoTimes. "Black & Veatch PRICO SMR Becomes World's First Proven FLNG Technology to Achieve Production on a Floating Facility - EconoTimes". EconoTimes. Retrieved 20 October 2016.
  24. ↑ "News".
  25. ↑ "The rise of FLNG - NGW Magazine".
  26. ↑ "Commercial and Technical Considerations in the Developments of Offshore Liquefaction Plant" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 12 August 2011. Retrieved 20 May 2011.
  27. ↑ "The Netherlands: FLNG Vessel as Safe as any Other Offshore Facility, Shell Says >>". LNG World News. 21 October 2010. Archived from the original on 5 April 2011. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  28. ↑ "A BREAKTHROUGH FOR FLOATING LNG?" (PDF). Laohamutuk.org. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
  29. ↑ "Natural Gas: Cleanest Burning Fossil Fuel Understand the numbers behind the claim" (PDF). Ngsa.org. Retrieved 30 December 2014.
  30. ↑ "Natural Gas: Clean, Quality, Cheap, Domestic, & Abundant". 26 April 2011. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  31. ↑ "Prelude LNG Development to Deploy Shell's FLNG Technology". Offshore-industry.eu. 9 October 2009. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  32. ↑ "Shell receives green light for Prelude FLNG — SEAAOC 2011". Seaaoc.com. 12 November 2010. Archived from the original on 25 March 2012. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  33. ↑ "The Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) Market 2011-2021 - Report - Energy". visiongain. 28 January 2011. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  34. ↑ "Assessment of the fuel cycle impact of liquefied natural gas as used in international shipping" (PDF). Theicct.org. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
  35. ↑ "Gas at the gates of oil's transport fuel citadel". Archived from the original on 6 June 2014. Retrieved 6 June 2014.
  36. ↑ "Microsoft PowerPoint - Disconnectable and Relocatable Riser System Solution for FLNG in Harsh Environment.ppt" (PDF). 2hoffshore.com. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2 September 2011. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
  37. ↑ "Shell Booklet-blank pgs in.indd" (PDF). Static.shell.com. Retrieved 10 June 2011.
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