(Arabian oil and gas) -- GE Oil & Gas has entered into an agreement with Technip to supply two steam turbine-driven compressors for the Shell Prelude Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) project. The facility, which is to be based offshore Australia, will be the largest floating offshore facility in the world. Technip and Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) formed a consortium (TSC) which Shell has tasked to engineer, procure, construct and install the Prelude FLNG facility.
The GE compression trains will be vital elements of the liquefaction process, which cools natural gas to a liquid state. In addition to the supply of the steam turbines and compressors, the scope of GE's agreement with Technip France includes start up and two years of training, operation and spare parts.
Shell's FLNG facility will be moored at the Prelude gas field, about 200 kilometers off Western Australia's Kimberly Coast. Offshore fields such as Prelude may hold significant quantities of natural gas, but many are at great distances from land or the nearest pipeline. Tapping into these ⌠stranded gas resources has been nearly impossible until now. The Shell FLNG facility addresses this industry challenge.