The race for Floating LNG

摘要

FLNG is the natural gas business's answer to the offshore oil industry. It may be an inevitable development, but is the time really right? FLNG is inherently a more risky venture than the FPSOs used for deepwater oil, even if the technology has made strides in recent years. The first vessels could be on the water between 2012-14, but the industry is still looking for that all-important final investment decision. rnJust as the 'easy oil' has become scarcer, so too has the 'easy gas', or at least that is the contention. The oil industry's answer was to move offshore into deep water. But as they did so the cost of building offshore structures rose and piping crude back to shore became increasingly uneconomic. The result was Floating Production Storage and Offloading vessels (FPSOs), which produce crude from deepwater subsea field developments and load it on to tankers for direct transport to refineries.