PERTH, Oct 8 (Reuters) — Australia could be the proving ground for a new technology that promises cheaper and quicker development of offshore gas reserves, oil major Royal Dutch Shell said on today.
Shell said it would use its floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) production technology to tap two of its gas fields off western Australia. It did not give a time frame, but the two fields, Prelude and Concerto, would be exploited over 20 years.
Shell is not the only firm looking to engineer floating LNG plants, which means developers won’t have to build onshore LNG plants or lay long gas pipelines at sea. The floating plants are also smaller and can be moved elsewhere once a deposit runs dry.
“FLNG technology has the potential to unlock some of Australia’s stranded gas reserves that have previously been considered uneconomic to develop because of their small size or distance from shore,” Malcolm Brinded, head of Shell’s international upstream operations, said in a statement.
Shell, the world’s largest private LNG producer, said its wholly owned Prelude and Concerto fields, in the Browse Basin, would be developed sequentially and the project would produce LNG, condensate and liquefied petroleum gas for over 20 years.
Shell said the Prelude FLNG project was now in the phase of front-end engineering and design. Technip-Samsung Heavy Industries consortium is designing, building and installing multiple FLNG facilities for Shell.
The Prelude gas field has 2.5-3 trillion cubic feet of gas and about 120 million barrels of condensate. It is expected to underpin a FLNG plant with an annual capacity of 3.5 million tonnes, Shell said.
Shell said it was working on environmental and production approvals for the Prelude project, with a draft environmental impact statement soon to be released for public comment.
Other firms that are also considering the FLNG as an option for developing their gas fields include Norway’s Flex LNG , Norwegian gas shipper Golar and France’s GDF Suez. — Reuters
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