Floating liquefied natural gas

Floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) refers to water-based liquefied natural gas (LNG) operations employing technologies designed to enable the development of offshore natural gas resources. While there are no FLNG facilities in production, there are multiple FLNG facilities in development. A facility is in development by the Malaysian national oil company PETRONAS, and is due to be completed by the end of 2015. Floating above an offshore natural gas field, the FLNG facility will theoretically produce, liquefy, store and transfer LNG (and potentially LPG and condensate) at sea before carriers ship it directly to markets. Another FLNG facility, developed by Exmar NV using Black & Veatch PRICO(R) technology, passed performance test in October 2016 in Nantong, China.

Studies into offshore LNG production have been conducted since the early 1970s, but it was only in the mid-1990s that significant research backed by experimental development began.

In 1997, Mobil developed a FLNG production concept based on a large, square structure (540 by 540 feet (160 m × 160 m)) with a moonpool in the center, commonly known as "The Doughnut". The Mobil proposal was sized to produce 6,000,000 tonnes (6,600,000 tons) LNG per year produced from 7,400,000 cubic metres (260,000,000 cu ft) per year of feed gas, with storage provided on the structure for 250,000 cubic metres (66,000,000 US gal) of LNG and 103,000 cubic metres (27,000,000 US gal) of condensate.

In 1999, a major study was commissioned as a joint project by Chevron Corporation and several other oil and gas companies. This was closely followed by the so-called 'Azure' research project, conducted by the EU and several oil and gas companies. Both projects made great progress in steel concrete hull design, topside development and LNG transfer systems.

Since the mid-1990s Royal Dutch Shell has been working on its own FLNG technology. This includes engineering and the optimization of its concept related to specific potential project developments in Namibia, Timor Leste/Australia, and Nigeria.

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