Floating LNG plant on schedule for 2022 production

Maputo, 5 Nov (AIM) – The Italian energy company ENI on 4 November announced that the last of the 13 “topside modules” has been lifted and installed on the hull of the floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility, under construction in South Korea.

When it is complete, the FLNG unit will be towed to the Mozambique Channel, off the coast of the northern province of Cabo Delgado. There it will extract and process gas from the Coral South field in Area Four of the Rovuma Basin.

According to an ENI press release, “This lifting, which marks the end of the onshore-modules fabrication campaign configuring the entire gas treatment and liquefaction plant, is on schedule and in line with the expected sail-away in 2021 and gas production start-up in 2022”.

The 13 topside modules weigh a total of 70,000 tonnes and were lifted onto the hull one at a time. The topside is now complete, but ENI says “construction is continuing with integration and commissioning activities”.

Roberto Dall’Omo, the General Manager of ENI Rovuma Basin, cited in the release, said “this is a great achievement for Area Four Partners, in middle of all struggles caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, and confirms our commitment to the successful development of the Coral South Project.”

Construction of the hull and the topside modules began in September 2019, and the hull was launched in January this year. The work is being carried out at the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard.

ENI says that the Coral South FLNG facility is the world’s first newly-built deepwater floating liquefaction plant and will have the capacity to produce 3.4 million tonnes of liquefied gas per year.

The Coral South Project is operated by Eni Rovuma Basin on behalf of the Area Four partners, who are Mozambique Rovuma Venture (MRV, an incorporated joint venture owned by Eni, ExxonMobil of the United States and the Chinese National Petroleum Corporation), Galp of Portugal, KOGAS of South Korea, and Mozambique’s own National Hydrocabon Company (ENH). The project is based on six ultra-deepwater wells in the Coral South field, at a water depth of around 2,000 metres.

ENI discovered this field in 2012, and it contains an estimated 16 trillion cubic feet of natural gas.
(AIM)