Inventing The
Shell
Floating Liquefied Natural Gas Facilities
Expanding the Scope of Economically and Technically Feasible Natural Gas Resources
Floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facilities enable the development of offshore natural gas resources by housing production, processing, liquefaction and transportation capabilities in one floating, offshore facility. By eliminating the need for onshore pipelines and liquefaction infrastructure, FLNG facilities can provide a cost-efficient and flexible method of developing previously uneconomical natural gas resources.
The Technology
Building on years of industry experience designing and constructing land-based liquefied natural gas (LNG) plants, the early-stage project development of FLNG plants began in the 1990s. In 2011, a consortium of private companies began work on an FLNG facility off of Australia’s western coast. When completed, this facility will be roughly one-quarter of the size of a comparable conventional onshore LNG facility
In the absence of pipelines, natural gas must be converted to a liquid prior to transport, shrinking the volume of the gas by 600 times to drastically reduce shipping costs. Typically, this process involves transporting natural gas from offshore fields via pipelines to onshore liquefaction facilities. FLNG facilities would eliminate the need to transport offshore gas to land-based facilities before shipping it to market, instead allowing the gas to be processed, treated, liquefied and loaded onto ocean-going carriers close to the offshore production site. To ensure that these operations are conducted safely, FLNG facilities will be outfitted with a number of new technologies such as LNG tanks that can withstand sloshing and LNG offloading arms to facilitate secure transfers in open water.
The Benefits
- Improved environmental performance: Offshore FLNG facilities reduce the energy industry’s impact on the marine environment by avoiding the construction of additional offshore pipelines.
- Increased resource development: FLNG facilities will enable the development of small or remote offshore gas resources that would otherwise be uneconomic or technically infeasible.
Companies
Download the Full Report
Business Roundtable members are creating technologies that actively contribute to a more efficient, secure and sustainable future for their customers and the public at large.
In Inventing the Future: How Technology Is Reshaping the Energy and Environmental Landscape Business Roundtable highlights just a small sample of technologies that are actively contributing to a more efficient, secure and sustainable future.
More Than Leaders. Leadership.
Business Roundtable is an association of chief executive officers of leading U.S. companies working to promote a thriving economy and expanded opportunity for all Americans through sound public policy.