LNG

Petronas, the Malaysian oil and gas company and leading floating LNG plant operator, has announced a 50th cargo lifting from the “PFLNG Satu” production hull, the first in the world to operate over a stranded gas field.

Malaysian energy company Petronas has reported a fire at its main onshore liquefied natural gas production plant at Bintulu, located in the eastern state of Sarawak on the island of Borneo.

Petronas, the Malaysian oil and gas company and LNG exporter and developer, is assessing front-end engineering and design (FEED) tenders for its third floating LNG production hull.

BASF Group, the German oil and gas and chemicals company, said the latest Malaysian floating LNG production hull owned by Petronas had selected BASF’s “OASE purple” process for its Acid Gas Removal Unit.

BASF, headquartered in the Rhine River city of Ludwigshafen, said the Petronas-owned vessel, the “PFLNG Dua”, is the first global user of the process.

The German company noted that Petronas successfully started up “FLNG Dua” in February 2021 and completed its performance test run in May 2021.

Petronas, the world leader in FLNG output, said in January 2021 that the “PFLNG Dua” had entered production in a joint venture with Thailand’s energy company PTTEP over the Rotan gas field offshore Sabah.

The vessel is deployed over the gas located 140 kilometres off Kota Kinabalu in Sabah state on the northern part of the island of Borneo.

The “PFLNG Dua” was constructed at the South Korean shipyard, Samsung Heavy Industries.

The first Petronas LNG hull, “PFLNG Satu”, became the world’s first FLNG vessel to start commercial operations in 2017 over the Kanowit gas field offshore Sarawak, another Malaysian state on Borneo.

Output

The “PFLNG Dua” has production capacity of 1.5 million tonnes of LNG per annum.

BASF said its “OASE purple” process is an amine-based solution that is utilized for the removal of acid gases such as carbon-dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen-sulfide (H2S) from natural gas.

The removal of acid gases is necessary to prepare the gas for the liquefaction and subsequent pipeline transportation.

“The highly efficient and environmentally friendly BASF technology provides flexibility and low capital expenditure for its customers,” said BASF.

“Additionally, the low energy demand of the process combined with the non-corrosive nature of the solvent keeps operating and maintenance costs (OPEX) low,” the German company added.

BASF explained that the process also provided a high level of gas purity and gas recovery while keeping solvent losses to a minimum.

“We are proud to now have our first FLNG reference in operation and running at 100 percent capacity, which is the fruit of many years of research,” said Andreas Northemann, Head of BASF’s Gas Treatment business.

“We applied our onshore LNG expertise and conducted motion studies and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to ensure a high reliability, low maintenance design which meets our customer’s stringent offshore specifications and challenges,” added Northemann.

Thailand’s energy exploration and production company PTTEP, a shareholder in Mozambique LNG, has announced a second successive natural gas discovery at a field in Malaysian waters offshore Sarawak as the nation also aims to expand LNG imports because of growing power and industrial demand.

Malaysian energy company Petronas, the world leader in floating liquefied natural gas output, said its second liquefaction hull, the “PFLNG Dua”, had entered production and confirmed that the state energy company of Thailand has debuted as an equity LNG producer.

Malaysian Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad and his wife have attended the naming ceremony near the port of Busan in South Korea of the second liquefied natural gas production vessel being built for Malaysia’s state-backed energy company Petronas.

Malaysian energy company Petronas said it had sucessfully moved its “PFLNG Satu” floating LNG production hull to the Kebabangan field offshore Sabah and introduced the first feed-gas volumes, while the initial cargo was expected to be shipped within weeks.

The “PFLNG Satu” had previously been located over the Kanowit stranded gas field offshore Sarawak where it became the world’s first FLNG vessel to start commercial operations in 2017.

It has now been moved to a location 90 kilometres offshore Sabah, the Malaysian state on the northern part of the island of Borneo, and is starting liquefaction of gas from the Kebabangan cluster field.

The first LNG cargo delivery from the new field is scheduled to take place in June.

“The introduction of first gas into the ‘PFLNG Satu’ was to the turret system via a 5-kilometre flexible pipeline,” said Petronas.

“The commencement of a series of start-up activities included the cooling down of natural gas until the production of the first LNG,” it added.

The Petronas Vice President of LNG Assets, Zakaria Kasah, said the moving of the FLNG hull showcases the company’s focused execution and collaboration efforts.

“We not only prove our concept of a relocatable floating LNG facility, but we have also seamlessly achieved the first LNG in just three days after first gas,” added Kasah.

“This is indeed another proud moment and a great milestone for Petronas and the floating LNG industry,” he stated.

Designed for water-depth of between 70 metres and 200 metres and with a processing capacity of 1.2 million tonnes per annum, the “FLNG Satu” operates with a crew of 155 onboard.

Petronas is also developing a second FLNG venture using another vessel to be deployed over the deepwater Rotan gas field, about 80 miles offshore Sabah.

Its joint venture partner is the Thai state energy company PTTEP, which purchased its stake from Murphy Oil, the US exploration and production company.

The Rotan gas well was discovered by Murphy in 2007. The Rotan field FLNG vessel is being designed to produce 1.5 MTPA.

Thailand national energy company PTT Exploration and Production (PTTEP), whose LNG assets include a stake in the Mozambique LNG export project in Area 1 of the Rovuma Basin, reported a 23 percent jump in first-quarter net income as it secured more exploration acreage and a floating LNG stake in Malaysia.

Murphy Oil, the US exploration and production company whose Rotan natural gas discovery offshore Malaysia is the subject of a floating LNG joint venture, has sold its Malaysian assets for more than $2 billion to Thailand state energy company PTT Exploration and Production.