The Prelude, a FNLG type vessel, is 488 meters long, which is equivalent to 4 football fields or also more in length than the Empire State Building in New York, making it the largest ship ever built.
The Prelude FLNG, which receives its acronym for Floating Liquefied Natural Gas, is a platform for the collection, processing, storage and handling of natural gas built by Royal Dutch and the Dutch company "Shell". The main structure was built in South Korea by the shipyard Samsung Heavy Industries, which began its construction in October 2012 and for which they needed up to 5,000 workers. The FMC Technologies team built the submarine portion while Emerson was the leading supplier. Other equipment and pieces were built in different parts of the world. Its characteristics are such that it has 2,000 miles of pipelines and 220,000 miles of electrical cable, which would be more than enough to wind up the Earth for 5 times.
Because the Prelude is designed to work in an area that is affected by cyclones from November through April, it has a stability control system that can withstand category 5 cyclones. This is equivalent to withstand winds of 300 km/h and waves up to 20 meters high. Moreover of the 488 meters in length, the Prelude is 74 meters wide and weighs about 600,000 tons, which is equivalent to ten times the weight of the famous Titanic. It is estimated that the total cost of the boat was of $13,000 million. It was launched in December 2013.
As stated before, the purpose of the Prelude is to be used as a gas extraction platform at a distance of 200 km off the Australian coast, although it is expected to begin servicing in 2017 and to last until 2042. Its intended operation is to extract natural gas from wells and liquefy it at -162 ºC, considering that in order to do so it requires 50 million liters of water to keep the natural gas so cold. This process of producing and discharging liquid natural gas to tankers reduces costs and eliminates the need for large processing plants. It is estimated that it may eventually produce 110,000 BOE per day.
To give an idea, the volume of gas that can be stored will be similar to 175 olympic swimming pools. Over its lifetime, it is estimated that about 350 people will work onboard and it will also generate indirect employment for over 650 employees.
Once up and running, it will be the largest natural gas refinery afloat in the world with the ability to extract 3.9 million tons of natural gas. Consequently, it is also estimated that the Prelude will leave the South Asian subsoil without any natural gas reserves.
