Daewoo cuts steel on Petronas FLNG vessel

CW8888's comment: Keppel better catches up with its FLNG

           

Josh Lewis

             

 

25 June 2013 08:14 GMT

The first steel has been cut on what Petronas claims will be the world's first operational floating liquefied natural gas vessel.

Petronas revealed on Tuesday that construction of the unit had started at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering's shipyard in Okpo, South Korea.

Once completed, the vessel will be capable of producing 1.2 million tonnes per annum of LNG and is destined for Petronas' Kanowit gas field which lies about 180 kilometres off the coast of Sarawak, Malaysia.

Daewoo and Technip were handed the engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning contract for the FLNG vessel in June last year.

Petronas said on Tuesday the start of construction of the FLNG unit marked a major milestone as it looks to meet its commissioning schedule of 2015, which would likely make the Kanowit the first operational FLNG project in the world.

The FLNG vessel will be 300 metres long, 60 metres wide and 33 metres deep and have a storage capacity of 177,000 cubic metres.

Daewoo started construction of an FLNG vessel for Shell in October last year which is destined for the Anglo-Dutch supermajor's Prelude field off Western Australia.

Shell's FLNG unit will be capable of producing 3.6 million tonnes per annum of LNG, plus sizeable quantities of condensate and LPG, however the Prelude project is not expected to commmence production until 2017.