Tag: Shell

Opportunities in floating power stations Shipping companies must cut overheads as fuel costs rise, and diversify into niche markets such as building floating power stations to ride out the current depressed market, top shippers said on Tuesday.Oil tanker freight rates have hit their lowest levels since 2009 in recent months and dry bulk earnings have also struggled as a glut of vessels hitting the market has outpaced demand.Profitability in shipping has also been hurt by rising operating costs resulting from a spike in oil prices which are near multi-year highs due in part to political unrest in the Arab world."The market today is the worst since the Black Plague," quipped Tor Olav Troeim, vice-president of Frontline, the world's biggest independent oil tanker group, during a shipping conference, revealing the mindset of many shippers.He added that the downturn in the oil tanker market had only begun and could take five years before it may improve again."How we can survive this cycle? We need to make sure costs are low ... This will be important in the years to come."Another executive expected the market to pick up earlier than Frontline anticipated."One would hope that by 2013 you start seeing the (supply-demand) gap ...

It will be made of 260,000 tons of steel Royal Dutch Shell PLC will construct the biggest floating man-made object ever, a natural gas processing plant longer than four football fields and more massive than any aircraft carrier.The "Prelude FLNG" facility, to be anchored off the Australian coast, will be made of 260,000 tons of steel - five times more than Sydney's famed Harbour Bridge, Shell said Friday.It is designed to take in the equivalent of 110,000 barrels per day in gas from undersea fields 200 kilometers (125 miles) off Australia's Northwest coast and cool it into liquefied natural gas, known as LNG.Australia is awash in natural gas, and is eager to sell it to the booming economies of Asia.In order for natural gas to be shipped overseas, it must be cooled to -260 degrees Fahrenheit. At that temperature the gas becomes a liquid that takes up just 0.2 percent of the volume of the gas, allowing more gas to be packed onto a ship.The Australian oil and gas company Woodside is set to begin production at a giant onshore liquid natural gas facility in Western Australia this year and is considering doubling its size.Shell claimed the plant will be ...