Royal Dutch Shell: hull of world's largest floating oil platform launched in South Korea

Fox News/AP ^ | 12/03/13

[oxcart]

Royal Dutch Shell PLC says it has completed building the hull of the world's largest floating facility, which has been constructed to process natural gas off the coast of western Australia.

Shell said Tuesday that the 488-meter (1,600 foot) hull of the structure, known as "Prelude," was floated out of the dry dock in Geoje, South Korea where it is being built.

[Steely Tom]

You didn’t build that.

[dblshot]

Nope, the Koreans did because we can’t do that kind of work in tis country anymore.

[thackney]

Prelude FLNG
http://www.shell.com/global/aboutshell/major-projects-2/prelude-flng/overview.html

Floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) is a revolutionary technology that will allow Shell to access offshore gas fields that would otherwise be too costly or difficult to develop. Prelude FLNG (67.5% Shell) is the world’s first FLNG development.

Technology

The floating facility will chill natural gas produced at the field to –162°C (-260°F), shrinking its volume by 600 times so it can be shipped to customers in other parts of the world.

Ocean-going carriers will load the LNG as well as other liquid by-products (condensate and LPG) for delivery to market.

The Prelude FLNG facility will be 488m (1,600-feet) long, 74m (240-feet) wide and will displace around 600,000 tonnes of water.

It will be the largest floating offshore facility in the world.

The Prelude FLNG facility is being built at Samsung Heavy Industries’ Geoje Island ship yards in South Korea.

The Samsung ship yard is one of the few yards in the world big enough to construct a facility of this size.

Once constructed, the facility will be towed to its location, approximately 475 kilometres (around 300 miles) north-northeast of Broome, Western Australia.

The facility will be moored and hooked up to the undersea infrastructure and the whole production system commissioned.

The Prelude FLNG facility has been designed to withstand the most powerful tropical cyclones.

It will remain permanently moored at the location for around 20-25 years before needing to dock for inspection and overhaul.

The LNG, LPG and condensate produced will be stored in tanks in the hull of the facility.

LNG and LPG carriers will moor alongside to offload the products.

Markets

The Prelude FLNG Project is well placed to help meet the growing natural gas demand of Asia.

[thackney]

>600 engineers worked on the facility’s design options

>200 km (125 miles) is the distance from the Prelude field to the nearest land

4 soccer fields, laid end to end, would be shorter than the facility’s deck

175 Olympic-sized swimming pools could hold the same amount of liquid as the facility’s storage tanks

6,700 horsepower thrusters will be used to position the facility

50 million litres of cold water will be drawn from the ocean every hour to help cool the natural gas

6 of the largest aircraft carriers would displace the same amount of water as the facility

93 metres (105 feet) is the height of the turret that runs through the facility, secured to the seabed by mooring lines

-162° Celsius (-260°F) is the temperature at which natural gas turns into LNG

1/600 is the factor by which a volume of natural gas shrinks when it is turned into LNG

117% of Hong Kong’s annual natural gas demand could be met by the facility’s annual LNG production

20-25 years is the time the Prelude FLNG facility will stay at the location to develop gas fields

[Obadiah]

The sad part? We had some of the greatest ship building talent and skills in the entire world, but most of that’s gone now. It is my position that the Unions pretty much killed off ship building in this country.

[Sicon]

It is my position that the Unions pretty much killed off ship building in this country.

What business/industry that unions are in, have they NOT killed off?

[mongo141]

“The sad part? We had some of the greatest ship building talent and skills in the entire world, but most of that’s gone now. It is my position that the Unions pretty much killed off ship building in this country.”
*******************
The same goes for the automotive industry.

[Tugo]

There are some big rigs launching out of Houston.

[Tugo]

http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/07/22/new-oil-platforms-rise-high-to-reach-deep/

Examples

[edcoil]

We can, government won’t let us.

[dblshot]

Ingleside actually but close enough. They do a lot of completions work on rigs that are floated in to get them ready to go into the Gulf of Mexico.
It's not just the union labor costs that make it difficult to compete with Korea. Taxes, Environmental Regulation, workmans comp issues, and the general reluctance of generation X to do manual labor (welding and pipe fitting)being part of the mix. Good welders are in demand all the time in LA and TX.

[dblshot]

The Prelude FLNG facility has been designed to withstand the most powerful tropical cyclones.
“I cannot imagine any condition which would cause a ship to founder. I cannot conceive of any vital disaster happening to this vessel. Modern shipbuilding has gone beyond that.” Captain Edward Smith

[thackney]

Corpus Christi area, not Houston, a couple hundred miles away.

The hulls are fabricated in places like Korea and brought in. In Ingleside they fabricate the more complicated topsides and put them together in Texas.

Long journey for oil platform hull ends in Texas
http://fuelfix.com/blog/2013/01/28/shells-latest-offshore-platform-arrives-in-texas/?cmpid=eefl

[American Constitutionalist]

[American Constitutionalist]

http://www.shell.com/global/aboutshell/major-projects-2/prelude-flng/prelude-flng-giant-step-forward.html

[zeestephen]