FMC technologies has been awarded a contract to supply subsea production and associated topside systems to Shell’s Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) facility at the Prelude Gas Field off Australia’s north west coast.

 

The field is located in the Browse Basin, northeast of Broome Western Australia, in water depths of approximately 820 feet (250 meters).  It will become Shell's first field development to utilize a floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility.  FMC's scope of supply includes seven large bore subsea production trees, production manifolds, riser bases, subsea control systems and other related equipment. All subsea equipment will be delivered from FMC's Asia-Pacific operations.

 

Dutch SBM Offshore has also been awarded a contract with Shell for the engineering, procurement, construction and integration (EPCI) of a major turret mooring system for the Prelude field development. SBM has also received the corresponding notice to proceed from Technip, which is partnering with SBM and Samsung Heavy Industries to design the facility. SBM will supply the system to Samsung’s Geoje shipyard in Korea for integration into the facility.

 

The turret mooring system, which will permanently anchor the floating facility at its offshore location and allow it to weathervane, will be the largest SBM has ever designed and built with overall dimensions exceeding 30 m in diameter and 100 m in height.

 

The facilities will be able to withstand extreme mooring forces resulting from the cyclonic metocean environment, SBM said.

 

The Shell Prelude FLNG facility will be the largest floating offshore facility in the world, measuring 488 m from bow to stern and weighing close to 600,000 t when fully loaded.

 

The Prelude FLNG plant is intended to remain at the Prelude field for 25 years, with the project designed to produce up to 3.6 MMt/a of LNG, 0.4 MMt/a of LPG and 1.3 MMt/a of gas condensate during that time. The FLNG facility includes six LNG storage tanks with a total capacity of 220,000 cubic metres. Upstream facilities will include wells, four flowlines approximately 4 km in length, umbilicals and flexible risers.

 

Production is due to commence in 2016.