Shell launches world's largest ship, bigger one planned

Originally published on December 5, 2013

The world's biggest vessel, Shell's Prelude FLNG vessel has taken to the water for the first time on Tuesday (December 3) in a shipyard in Geoje, South Korea.

Prelude FLNG vessel measures 105 meters tall, 75 meters wide, and 488 meters long. After its completion in 2017 the vessel will be anchored about 200 km off Australia's north-west coast and will operate there for 25 years. Prelude has been designed to withstand storms and cyclone-force waves as the area has a yearly cyclone season from November to April.

Once the gas is on board, 50 million litres of cold water are drawn from the sea every hour to help the cooling process. Prelude chills the gas to -162 Celsius, shrinking its volume 600 times. Prelude will produce approximately 3.6 million tonnes a year (mtpa) of LNG along with 5.3 mtpa of liquids and other hydrocarbons.

The company hopes the facility will be able to produce enough gas to power a city the size of Hong Kong. It has already started working on building an even bigger facility.

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