Shell has unveiled plans to build the world’s first floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) platform. The 600,000-tonne behemoth – the world’s biggest “ship” – will be sited off the coast of Australia. But how will it work?
Deep beneath the world’s oceans are huge reservoirs of natural gas. Some are hundreds or thousands of miles from land, or from the nearest pipeline. Tapping into these “stranded gas” resources has been impossible – until now.
At Samsung Heavy Industries’ shipyard on Geoje Island in South Korea, work is about to start on a “ship” that, when finished and fully loaded, will weigh 600,000 tonnes. That is six times as much as the biggest US aircraft carrier. By 2017 the vessel should be anchored off the north coast of Australia, where it will be used to harvest natural gas from Shell’s Prelude field. Once the gas is on board, it will be cooled it until it liquefies, and stored in vast tanks at -161C. Every six or seven days a huge tanker will dock beside the platform and load up enough fuel to heat a city the size of London for a week.The tankers will then sail to Japan, China, Korea or Thailand to offload their cargo.
Categories: Australia, Science and Technology