The largest piece of the turret for Shell’s Prelude Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) facility has set sail from Dubai for the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard in Geoje, South Korea, where the facility is under construction.
The turret is part of a mooring system designed to ensure Prelude FLNG can operate safely in the most extreme weather conditions. At almost 100m high, it is the largest in the world. The turret will run through the front of the facility and connect to giant chains that will keep it moored securely over the Prelude gas field. The turret mooring system will allow the facility to turn slowly in the wind and with currents – ensuring it can remain safely at its location through the most powerful cyclones.
Matthias Bichsel, projects & technology director at Shell, said: “Designed in Monaco, built in Dubai, shipped to South Korea and for use off Australia, the turret is an example of the truly global nature of this project.” Once complete, Prelude FLNG will operate in a remote basin around 200km off Australia’s north-west coast, for around 25 years and will produce about 3.6Mt of LNG a year. After the first 25-year assignment, Prelude FLNG could be refurbished and moved to a different field for another quarter century.
