So there you are. I thought it was you when I heard the click. Pour yourself a mug of Robusta energy fuel and wrestle one of those Apple Dutchies off the top shelf. Careful! Don’t drop it on your toes. Tony in Manchester sent me a note that Shell is making good on its promise to build the largest object ever to float on water. They announced on Friday that it would build the Prelude FLNG Project to harvest offshore natural gas fields. The gargantuan ship will suck up the equivalent of 110 000 barrels of oil per day.
The Prelude floating liquefied natural gas facility (FLNG) will dwarf even the biggest warships, weighing in at 600 000 tonnes. By contrast, the United States’ next-generation Ford-class aircraft carrier will displace 101 000 tonnes of water. Shell says its ship will be able to withstand a category 5 typhoon.
In some ways, it’s more of a mini-island than a ship, designed to be moored in the same spot off the north‑west coast of Australia for 25 years. The facility will be one-third of a mile long—longer than five football fields laid end to end—and will contain 260 000 tonnes of steel, about five times the amount used to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge.
Without an ocean‑going facility, it would be impossible to harvest natural gas that far from land, Shell said. The Prelude will be the first facility of its kind, but not the last—the design can accommodate a wide range of gas fields, said Malcolm Brinded, executive director for Shell’s Upstream International, in a news release. So someday, massive floating gas factories could be deployed in various oceans throughout the world.
Floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) is a revolutionary technology that will allow Shell to access offshore gas fields that would otherwise be too costly or difficult to develop. Prelude FLNG (100% Shell) is the world’s first FLNG development.
All well and good, but will it bring down the price of oil and gas, eh?
See ya!
Bob
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