Tradewinds: FLNG Drives Vessel Demand

“The FLNG sector has been given new impetus with yards at the ready and the added prospect of shuttle carriers and offshore vessels to service the units.  Petronas’s decision this month to go public on its March sanction of the company’s first floating liquefaction (FLNG) unit has given new impetus to this emerging sector. The company will build a 1.2-million-tonnes-per-annum (mtpa)-capacity floater, which equates in size to something akin to a Q-flex LNG carrier, at Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) in South Korea where the yard will be working in partnership with contractor Technip. The unit will be built in DSME’s No 5 floating dock, which has been reserved for the construction of FLNG units and is scheduled to be in operation by 2015. . . . Speaking at ICBI’s recent FLNG 2012, Poten & Partners manager LNG & Gas Consulting Graham Hartnell flagged up the potential difficulty of financing FLNG projects and the technical complexity of the units and said he believes the industry will wait to see the first in operation before sanctioning others.”