Royal Dutch Shell announced on March 18 that it shipped the first condensate cargo from its Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) project off northwestern Australia. The 116,000dwt tanker Advantage Atom arrived at Prelude from Singapore on March 20.
Mainly, a Shell spokeswoman quoted on Reuters that the vessel’s shipment is another step towards steady state operations.
Shell was planning to begin generating cash flow from Prelude in 2018. However, it has yet to start shipping LNG from its project, which was to have been the world’s first floating LNG facility but was surpassed by Malaysia’s Petronas.
Moreover, the spokeswoman commented that Shell focuses on providing a controlled environment to make sure that Prelude will operate efficiently and safely now and in the future.
Prelude has a capacity of 3.6 million tons per annum and is located 155 nautical miles offshore and weather vanes 360 degrees around a turret, moored in 248 meters of water.
Concluding, Prelude is the world’s biggest floating LNG production unit and the biggest maritime vessel ever built.
