Shell’s problematic giant LNG production unit ‘Prelude FLNG’ suffered another setback last week when a fire caused the FLNG to be shut down and led to the evacuation of round 150 crew.
A small fire was detected last Thursday in an electrical equipment area on the 488 m long unit.
A Shell spokesman told local media that the fire triggered automatic fire systems and was extinguished before it spread further and all workers were safe and accounted for.
“The incident resulted in the loss of main power and the facility is currently operating on backup diesel generators,” he said following the incident. “While work is under way to restore main power, production on the ‘Prelude’ has been suspended temporarily.”
A spokeswoman for Australian offshore safety regulator, National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) said that it had been informed of the fire by Shell and had started an investigation.
This latest setback comes after the ‘Prelude’ had achieved steady production for some time after several problems in the first few years of operation.
The unit is moored some 475 km northeast of Broome, Western Australia.
Another outage has occurred on Chevron’s Gorgon LNG plant.
This concerned Train 3 and follows Train 1’s re-entry into service after maintenance.
"Following the successful repair and restart of Gorgon LNG Train 1, we have undertaken a controlled shutdown of LNG Train 3 to carry out repairs on piping associated with the dehydration unit," a Chevron spokesperson told newswires.
