Floating Liquefied Natural Gas – Huge Growth Planned Through to 2018 Figure 1: Floating Liquefied Natural Gas Capital Expenditure by Type
Table 1: Prelude Statistics Size
Displacement
Import 39 %
Liquefaction 61 %
Liquefied natural gas capacity Condensate Capacity LPG capacity Storage Field(s)
Water depth LPG = liquefied petroleum gas. Leasing
Under Prelude’s business model, the feedstock owner, Shell, will operate the floating liquefaction vessel and be responsible for obligating any contractual arrangements with offtakers. While this is likely to form the business model for large integrated companies such as Shell, other operators are looking to leasing in order to spread risk.
Under the leasing model, the owner of the LNG FPSO does not own any rights to the feed gas or the LNG as it is processed, liquefied
Source: Douglas-Westwood.1 Figure 2: Floating Liquefied Natural Gas Capital Expenditure by Region North America Middle East
Western Europe
Africa
Many Asian countries are considering floating regasification vessels in order to import gas to rapidly growing cities.
Latin America Asia
and stored. Instead, the leasing contractor receives a fee for providing the services.
Eastern Europe and Former Soviet Union
Leasing is extremely common in the conventional FPSO sector and there is considerable scope for cross-over within the FPSO and floating liquefaction leasing sectors. Companies involved in both sectors include BW Offshore, SBM Offshore and Teekay.
Australasia Source: Douglas-Westwood.1 Leased LNG FPSO designs differ from Prelude in the following:
By introducing two rows of tanks, the liquid motions in the tanks are significantly reduced and resonance between the liquid motion and ship motion avoided. This reduces the risk of sloshing-related damage to an absolute minimum.
Liquefaction Processing Technology
The Prelude vessel measuring 488 x 74 m will be the world’s largest offshore floating structure (see Table 1).
Prelude’s liquefaction process trains will use Shell’s dual mixed refrigerant (DMR) technology. The design makes use of two compressor strings that ensure that if one compressor fails, the whole train does not stop – it can continue running at a reduced capacity. The first application of this technology in a baseload LNG terminal was the Sakhalin II project in Russia.
Correspondingly, these vessels are expected to have lower capital cost than Prelude, which has been estimated at around US$3 billion.
Floating Regasification
Floating regasification vessels are the most developed form of floating LNG system and there are currently nine such facilities in operation worldwide. These are located in Argentina, Brazil, Dubai, Kuwait, UK and US. A further one in the US Gulf of Mexico is being decommissioned.
60 HYDROCARBON WORLD – VOLUME 6 ISSUE 2
• smaller physical size; •
smaller liquefaction capacity – most of the designs range between 2 and 3 mmtpa. This compares to Prelude’s 3.6 mmtpa of LNG, plus condensate and liquefied petroleum gas (LPG); and
• simpler liquefaction technology – nitrogen expander or single mixed refrigerant compared to Shell’s DMR.
488 x 74 m
600,000 tonnes 3.6 mmtpa 1.3 mmtpa 0.4 mmtpa 220,000 m3
Prelude, Concerto, Cruz 250 m
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