Asia/Pacific News
Petronas Awards Contract for "First of its Kind" Floating LNG Facility
Petronas Floating LNG 1 (L) Ltd (Petronas FLNG), a wholly owned subsidiary of Petroliam Nasional Berhad (Petronas) have signed contracts in Kuala Lumpur for the country's first Floating Liquefied Natural Gas facility (FLNG), the company has announced in a press release.
The new FLNG facility which is expected to be operational by the end of 2015, will be moored approximately 180 km off the coastal town of Bintulu, Malaysia, and is set to increase the country's LNG production from 25.7 mtpa to 26.9 mtpa.
Consortium
According to reports, the contract was awarded to a consortium made up of Technip, whose headquarters are based in Paris, France, and South Korea's Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME), and will be known as the Technip-Daewoo Consortium (TDC).
TDC were commissioned for an undisclosed amount, for engineering, procurement, construction and installation of the 300 meter by 60 meter FLNG facility that will produce 1.2 million tonnes per year of LNG (mtpa).
The FLNG facility is expected to "change the landscape of the LNG business" as LNG liquefaction, production and offloading processes previously needed to be conducted at onshore plants.
Petronas CEO, Shamsul Azhar Abbas said during his announcement at the 25th World Gas Conference in Kuala Lumpur this week, that their first floating LNG project "aims to be the first of its kind in the world."
He went on to say the FLNG facility's inception was in preparation for the impending supply shortfall in peninsular Malaysia and they have plans for a second LNG re-gasification terminal in southern Johor as part of the RAPID development in Pengerang, and a third in Lahad Datur in eastern Malaysia, to be commissioned in 2015.
Wan-Soo Ryu, Senior Executive Vice President and CBO of DSME said, "This is a key award for TDC as the FLNG facility is a high value-added mixed structure.
"DSME is expecting additional contracts with the development of underwater natural gas fields all over the world."
Royal Dutch Shell Plc are Petronas' main competitor for a FLNG terminal with plans to have their Prelude FLNG plant operating by 2017, which will be moored about 200 km off the north-west coast of Australia.
