PreludeFLNG is the world's largest floating liquefied natural gas platform as well as the largest offshore facility ever constructed. The Prelude was built by the TechnipSamsung Consortium in South Korea for a joint venture between Royal Dutch Shell, KOGAS, and Inpex. It is long, wide, and made with more than 260,000 tonnes of steel. The vessel will displace around 660,000 tonnes when fully loaded, more than five times the displacement of a. The hull was launched in December 2013.
Construction
The main double-hulled structure was built by the TechnipSamsung Consortium in the Samsung Heavy Industries Geoje shipyard in South Korea. Construction was officially started when the first metal was cut for the substructure in October 2012. The Turret Mooring System has been subcontracted to SBM and has been built in Drydocks World Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The MEG reclamation unit by Fjords Processing Norway and built in South Korea is the only topside module subcontracted. Other equipment such as subsea wellheads are being constructed in other places around the world. It was launched on 30 November 2013 with no superstructure. The vessel is moored by its turret to 16 seabed driven steel piles, each 65-meters-long and 5.5 meters in diameter. Subsea equipment is being built by FMC Technologies, and Emerson is the main supplier of automation systems and uninterruptible power supply systems. By July 2015, all 14 gas plant modules were installed.
Cost and funding
Prelude FLNG was approved for funding by Shell in 2011. Analyst estimates in 2013 for the cost of the vessel were between. Shell estimated in 2014 that the project would cost up to per million tons of production capacity. Competitive pressures from an increase in the long-term production capabilities of North Americangas fields due to hydraulic fracturing technologies and increasing Russian export capabilities may reduce the actual profitability of the venture from what was anticipated in 2011.
Operations
The Prelude FLNG system will be used in the Prelude and Concerto gas fields in the Browse LNG Basin, off the coast of Australia; drilling and gas production are both expected to begin in 2016. It has a planned life expectancy of 25 years. The Prelude and Concerto fields are expected to produce 5.3 million tonnes of liquid and condensate per year; this includes 3.6 million tonnes of liquified natural gas, 1.3 million tonnes of condensate, and 400,000 tonnes of liquified petroleum gas. Natural gas will be extracted from wells and liquefied by chilling it to. The ability to produce and offload LNG to large LNG carriers is an important innovation, which reduces costs and removes the need for long pipelines to land-based LNG processing plants. However, fitting all the equipment onto a single floating facility was a significant challenge. The system is designed to withstand Category 5 cyclones, although workers may be evacuated before that on an EC225 rescue helicopter. It will produce 110,000 BOE per day. On 25 July 2017, after a journey of from its construction site in South Korea, Prelude arrived on site in Western Australian waters. It will begin its hook-up and commissioning phase, and is expected to become operational in 2018. On 26 December 2018, Royal Dutch Shell announced that initial production had begun at Prelude. Shell said that wells had been opened and that the start-up and ramp-up phases were underway.
