DNV to Class PETRONAS’ First FLNG

DNV has been awarded the contract to class PETRONAS’ first floating LNG unit (PFLNG 1), destined for the Kanowit field offshore Sarawak, Malaysia.

The unit will be 360m long and 60m wide and will be moored 180km from shore. It will produce 1.2 million tonnes a year (mtpa) of LNG, and is expected to be the world’s first floating liquefaction unit in operation when completed by end 2015.

The scope of the DNV’s contract includes the floating structure, mooring arrangement and natural gas liquefaction technology.

The floating LNG unit negates the need for a costly or technically problematic offshore pipeline to transport the gas back to land-based liquefaction plant and includes liquefaction technology, designed for use on a floating facility.

“The ability to process and offload LNG offshore will increase the viability of significant gas reserves in remote and stranded fields and beyond that, we foresee a number of these very high investment projects being built throughout the world as a means of developing gas fields and transporting the gas economically to market,” says Conn Fagan, Vice President of floating gas project business development at DNV.

“There is currently a high demand for LNG,” says Mr Fagan. It can be a cost effective solution for supplying the energy needs of rapidly growing cities such as those in Bangladesh, China, India, Indonesia and Vietnam, as well as providing flexibility of supply for consumers currently reliant on pipeline gas. This demand, coupled with the presence of large offshore gas reserves, some in remote locations, has made the floating LNG production unit an interesting technical and economic option.

“DNV is at the forefront of FLNG technology and we are building competence around the world to support PETRONAS in this project and other clients who are entering the field,” says Mr Fagan. “This is cutting edge technology for the oil and gas industry and it will have a dramatic impact on the nature of upstream business around the world.”