Tuesday, 14 June 2011SHELL has expressed its interest in using...

Tuesday, 14 June 2011
SHELL has expressed its interest in using its Prelude floating liquefied natural gas project to monetise nearby fields.
Shell FLNG general manager Neil Gilmour told Reuters the Prelude field could be tied into a cluster of fields at least 100 kilometres away to extend its lifespan.

?The infrastructure is there to help them monetise it,? he said.

?So I?m very hopeful that the field is out there for 20 odd years and there will be more gas found.?

Shell is already known to be interested in feeding gas from the Crux field in AC/L9 into Prelude once it assumes ownership of the permit from Nexus Energy in 2021.

Other fields in the area include the Libra field as well as the Auriga and Caelum prospects.

Gilmour added the company was confident of moving quickly on a second FLNG facility if the dispute over the development of the Greater Sunrise field could be resolved and also flagged the possibility of a third facility in Australia.

Other areas where FLNG could be used include Indonesia, East Africa, Southern Europe and Brazil.

?Asia Pacific is going to be immensely important to us, but we?re going to look at other arts of the world as well,? Gilmour said.

?A lot of gas was found in East Africa which is new in the last 18 months.?

The Prelude FLNG vessel will be 488 metres long and is designed to be capable of producing 3.6 million tonnes of LNG, 1.3MMtpa of condensate and 400,000t of liquefied petroleum gas per annum.

The FLNG installation and hook-up is expected to take about six months, with commissioning in 2015 before first gas in 2016.