Shell announced that that its Prelude floating gas liquefaction facility (Prelude FLNG) has arrived in Australian waters. The facility to be located approximately 475-Km north-east of Broome in Western Australia as the first deployment of Shell’s FLNG technology which will see a 488-M long floating facility “extracting and liquefying gas at sea, before it is exported to customers around the globe.”
Shell said that it had awarded a majority of Prelude contracts to Australian contractors, including the contract awarded to Australian engineering company Monadelphous for maintenance and modification services valued at $200 million. “West Australian based company CIVMEC, a construction and engineering services provider, constructed the four massive anchor piles for Prelude’s subsea flowlines from their facility in Henderson.”
The Prelude project will employ 260 local workers on board the facility during operations and create over 1500 jobs during the hook-up and commissioning phase of the project, Shell said, adding that it expects to see cashflow from the project during 2018.
Backgrounds:

On 29 Jun. 2017, Shell announced that Prelude FLNG left the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard in Geoje, South Korea, marking a significant milestone for the project. “The facility, constructed by Technip Samsung Consortium, is being towed to North West Australia, where the next phase of the project will begin,” the operator said, adding that on arrival at the Prelude offshore gas field, 475-Km north-north east of Broome, Western Australia, “pre-installed mooring chains will be lifted from the seabed and secured to the facility. Once secure, the hook-up and commissioning process will begin.”
The 3.6 MMT/Y Prelude FLNG project’s shareholders are Shell 67.5%, INPEX 17.5%, CPC 5%, KOGAS 10%.
On 21 Mar. 2017, EnerMech announced that it has been awarded a pre-commissioning subcontract by Prelude FLNG project’s EPC contractor, TechnipFMC, under which EnerMech will work on the pre-installation filling of the risers, riser leak testing, pressure monitoring of the umbilical and electrical steel flying lead during pipelay, and electrical flying leads and umbilical testing.
Updates:

On 29 Nov. 2017, Shell confirmed that it has sewn doubt in the market about an early 2018 start-up of its Prelude floating LNG project as it signalling that the project will only start contributing noticeably to cash flow in 2019.

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