Which of the three floating (FLNG) vessels ordered to date will be the first to enter service?
The commercial production of LNG on a floating vessel is edging nearer.Which of the three floating LNG production (FLNG) vessels ordered to date will be the first to enter service is a moot point.
Shell ordered the first LNG “floater” in May 2011. This vessel, which is being built in Korea for the Prelude project off Australia’s northwestern coast, is so large and is embracing so many ground-breaking technologies that it will not be ready to enter into service until early 2017.
A project more moderate in scale is the FLNG vessel that Petronas made the commitment to build in Korea in early 2012. The PFLNG 1 scheme calls for the vessel to be positioned in shallow water about 180 km off the coast of Bintulu in the Malaysian state of Sarawak, to liquefy gas from the Kanowit field.
In contrast to the Prelude floater, which will be 488 metres in length, 74 metres in breadth and have the capacity to produce 3.6 million tonnes per annum (mta) of LNG, the PFLNG 1 vessel will be 300 m long, 60 m wide and have a 1.2 mta liquefaction capacity. The Malaysian unit is scheduled to commence LNG production in late 2015.
The smallest of the three projects under construction is that being developed by Pacific Rubiales for positioning at Tolú on Colombia’s Caribbean coast. The non-propelled vessel, termed a floating liquefaction regasification and storage unit (FLRSU), was ordered in China in June 2012 and could be providing LNG, initially for the spot market, as soon as late 2014. Pacific Rubiales intends to eventually make FLRSU cargoes available to power stations in the Caribbean region, once the required LNG receiving infrastructure is in place.
The small liquefaction barge will be able to produce up to 0.5 mta of LNG. Its regasification capability will enable a reversal of cargo flows. In this way, Colombia will be in a position to import gas on those occasions when droughts cause a reduction in output from the country’s hydroelectric plants.
The three FLNG projects that have been sanctioned represent the tip of an iceberg whose presence is growing by the day. Petronas is poised to make a final investment decision on its PFLNG 2 scheme, a 1.5 mta FLNG project aimed at monetising the gas resources of the Sabah field. This deepwater deposit is also located off the coast of Sarawak and the proposed timetable calls for the first LNG cargoes to commence loading by late 2016.
Another country whose FLNG aspirations are beginning to materialise is Israel. Large deposits of gas have recently been discovered in Mediterranean coastal waters, enough to supply both the domestic and export markets. Gazprom has recently signed up to purchase the output from a 3 mta FLNG vessel that would be built in Korea and stationed over the Tamar field, off the coast near Haifa. The sale and purchase contract calls for shipments to commence in 2017 and extend over a period of 20 years.
The discovery of large volumes of shale gas in the US in recent years has raised the prospect of that country emerging as one of the leading exporters of LNG over the next decade. One US LNG export project is under construction, a second has just been sanctioned and 20 additional schemes are at various stages of the permitting process.
Source: Mike Corkhill, BIMCO
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