Watch the World’s Largest Ship on Its Maiden Voyage

After 14 months of construction, the Shell Prelude FLNG project continues to create history. Measuring nearly half a kilometre in length and weighing over 200,000 tonnes, the facility’s enormous hull is ready to take to the water for the first time. Join the team in Goeje, South Korea, as it prepares to launch the largest hull ever sent to sea.

The 488-metre-long-hull of Shell’s Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility was earlier this month floated out of the dry dock at the Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) yard in Geoje, South Korea, where the facility is currently under construction.

Prelude is expected to produce 3.6 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) of LNG, 1.3 mtpa of condensate and 0.4 mtpa of LPG, and to remain on location for approximately 25 years. The Prelude FLNG hull is longer than four soccer fields laid end to end and it is longer than the Empire State Building is tall.  The LNG storage tanks have a capacity equivalent to approximately 175 Olympic swimming pools.

Once complete, the FLNG facility will weigh more than 600,000 tonnes fully loaded, displacing the same amount of water as six of the world’s largest aircraft carriers. Whilst the Prelude facility is big it is also small – taking up 1/4 the area of an equivalent onshore LNG plant.

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December 20, 2013