It took eight weeks for the world’s largest floating gas production vessel to be hauled by tugboats from a South Korean shipyard to the spot almost 500km off the north-west coast of Australia where it was moored last month.
For the next 25 years this red-hulled Goliath — the length of four football pitches and nine-times the weight of the UK’s new aircraft carrier when fully loaded — will harvest gas from subsea wells and convert it into super-cooled liquefied natural gas. Tankers will visit the ship once a week to offload its LNG for export.
The $14bn Prelude project, led by Royal Dutch Shell, is the latest in a surge of new LNG capacity which promises to reshape the oil and gas industry — and with it, the energy markets they serve. Chevron’s Wheatstone LNG development in Australia is due to start producing this month, on the heels of its nearby Gorgon project last year, after a combined $88bn of investment. ExxonMobil, BP, Total and Eni have also made big commitments.