Friday, July 6, 2007
Momentum builds as FSRU benefits begin to take hold
July 6, 2007
Upstream
Floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) have been proposed for a number of locations around the world, but such schemes are still rare, although momentum is building, writes Adrian Cottrill.
The largest number of proposals for offshore regasification plants - either floating or founded on the seabed - has been put up for US waters.
However, those proposals have suffered mixed fortunes on the permitting front.
As a result, a number of fixed offshore proposals in the Gulf of Mexico have moved on to the back-burner. Also, in May, BHP Billiton's proposal for an FSRU off California had its application rejected by the state.
The plan for Cabrillo Port involved a true FSRU in every sense of the word - a floating steel hull moored well offshore in deep water, receiving liquefied natural gas from visiting shuttle carriers, regasifying it on board and then sending the resultant gas to shore by high-pressure pipeline.
However, for the moment Cabrillo Port looks to be off the agenda, a victim of opinions in a region that has, depending on your point of view, either the world's most finely-honed environmental sensitivities, or its most advanced case of "not in my backyard" syndrome.
Nevertheless, the US has also been the venue for the world's first offshore floating regasification unit, even if it does not quite fit into the category of full-blown FSRU.
The Gulf Gateway scheme in the Gulf of Mexico has been carried forward by operator Excelerate Energy and partner Exmar, and received its first cargo of LNG in March 2005.
That scheme is based on the concept of the "shuttle and regas vessel" (SRV), with the carrier serving for both ocean transport and then, on arrival at the import location, using its own onboard regasification plant to deliver gas.
The vessel picks up a mooring buoy, along with gas export riser and then proceeds to regasify its own cargo over a period of typically five days for a full ship.
In effect, the SRV option is a slightly temporary form of FSRU. In a full-blown FSRU, the vessel still stores LNG and carries regasification equipment, but it no longer is used as a sea-going unit.
Instead it is permanently moored at its chosen site to act as a receiving point for liquefied gas delivered by standard carriers. In this way, the unit serves as the equivalent of a coastal regasification facility, but is more easily set up and moved.
At the top end of the size scale, FSRUs will need to store larger volumes of LNG than any straightforward carrier can contain.
This means they will be purpose newbuilds, such as BHP's Cabrillo Port proposal. However, carrier conversion is perfectly viable for the sort of FSRU that Golar is to provide for Brazil.
Excelerate's pioneering Gulf Gateway SRV project has seen only intermittent use as a regasification terminal since that first transfer in 2005. However, Excelerate and Exmar have gone on to tailor this operational model for further projects.
First of these is the UK's Teesport, where the arriving regasification vessel ties up at a river-mouth quayside rather than mooring at a buoy offshore. This terminal took an initial part-cargo of LNG in February this year.
Excelerate is also moving ahead with a gas import scheme off the US coast - Northeast Gateway, in Boston Bay - where it plans to deploy two mooring buoys and dedicate two regasification vessels.
Another entrant to the SRV business - a teaming of Hoegh and Suez - is proceeding with the parallel Neptune two-buoy scheme in Boston Bay, aiming at start-up by the end of 2009.
Outside the US, the highest profile for offshore regasification projects actually under way at present is to be found off Italy.
The leading scheme is a big concrete gravity-base structure rather than a floater, for the Edison- ExxonMobil-Qatari Adriatic LNG project, well into construction now and due to start-up off the east coast in mid-2008.
However, Italy also has at least one floating regasification project moving through the planning stages off the west coast.
Known as OLT (Offshore LNG Toscana) this is sited 20 kilometres out to sea off Livorno, and is scheduled to be completed in 2009. It marks Golar's original foray in this field, dating from 2002.
The latest milestone to have been reached for OLT is May's signing of an agreement appointing Moss Maritime parent Saipem responsible for constructing the terminal.
This includes engineering for conversion of the 137,000 cubic metre capacity Golar Frost gas carrier, built in 2004 by Hyundai.
Livorno's gas send-out level will be about 10 million cubic metres per day, using an open-loop system that adopts propane as an intermediate fluid.
Building of shore facilities began in March and the partners are now heading towards a firm investment decision, perhaps in September this year.
