Multi-year FLNG gig enables UK firm to expand on its 70-year relationship with Shell

UK-headquartered energy giant Shell has hired Wood, a compatriot player, on a long-term engineering assignment related to its floating liquified natural gas (FLNG) facility off the coast of Western Australia.

The six-year contract allows Wood to provide brownfield engineering, procurement, and construction management (EPCM) solutions for Shell’s Prelude FLNG facility. The Shell-operated FLNG facility is an offshore project producing natural gas from a remote field approximately 475 km north-northeast of Broome in Western Australia.

The Prelude FLNG unit can produce 3.6 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG, 1.3 mtpa of condensate and 0.4 mtpa of LPG. The floating LNG facility is operated by Shell, through a joint venture with Inpex (17.5%), KOGAS (10%), and OPIC (5%).

Ken Gilmartin, CEO at Wood, commented: “LNG is a key transition fuel as industry balances the need for global energy security with the importance of urgent reduction in carbon emissions. We are delighted to build on our 70-year global relationship with Shell to deliver integrated brownfield engineering solutions for Prelude, the world’s largest floating offshore gas facility.”

The Shell-operated Crux development, sanctioned in May 2022, has been identified as a source of backfill gas for the existing Prelude FLNG facility. As a result, Crux will have the capacity to supply the Prelude FLNG facility with up to 550 million standard cubic feet of gas per day(mmscfd).

Located in Commonwealth waters in the northern Browse Basin, 190 kilometers offshore northwest Australia and 620 km northeast of Broome, in approximately 165 meters of water depth, the development of this project will consist of a platform operated remotely from Prelude while five wells are expected to be drilled initially.

Moreover, an export pipeline will connect the platform to Prelude, around 160 kilometers southwest of Crux. Shell anticipates the first gas in 2027.

Wood’s deal with Shell comes a couple of months after the firm secured a new decarbonization contract with TotalEnergies in the North Sea. The UK  firm also won a front-end engineering design (FEED) contract with Centrica Energy Storage (CES).