Shell's 34,000t North Sea-bound Penguins FPSO Leaves Chinese Shipyard
Shell's Penguins FPSO has set sail from China loaded aboard Boskalis' White Marlin semi-submersible heavy transportation vessel.In a social media post on Thursday, Boskalis said: "Boskalis’ semi-submersible transport vessel White Marlin departed from Qingdao, China with an impressive cargo; the 34,000-ton cylinder-shaped Shell Penguins FPSO. After a smooth and safe float-on and [seafastening] campaign, the vessel started her journey to Norway." At the time of writing, the White Marlin was sailing past the east coast of Taiwan…
Sembmarine to Buy Sevan Marine’s IP
Sembcorp Marine (SembMarine) announced that its wholly-owned subsidiary, Sembcorp Marine Integrated Yard (SMIY) plans to buy the intellectual property (IP) of Norway’s Sevan Marine for US$28 million and bring an end to a long-standing intellectual property dispute between the two parties. SMIY will further undertake to take over some of Sevan Marine’s existing service contracts and provide engineering services to some of Sevan’s existing contract partners which have outstanding licence fees payable to Sevan Marine. The litigation between SCM Group and Sevan Marine in the US Courts over the infringement of intellectual property rights of SCM Group will be terminated subject to completion.
HiLoad LNG Offloading Solution Presented at OTC
HiLoad LNG AS, a subsidiary of Sevan Marine ASA, and Technip presented together this year the HiLoad LNG Parallel Loading System (PLS) at OTC. This system utilizes the HiLoad LNG unit for station keeping and Technip’s cryogenic flexible aerial pipes to transfer LNG from a FLNG unit (either a Sevan Marine Cylindrical unit or ship shaped FLNG) to a fully conventional LNGC with no modifications necessary. The combination of the HiLoad LNG unit and Technip’s cryogenic pipes was simulated last year at MARIN’s facilities in Holland. The successful outcome of this simulation demonstrated the ability of the system to maintain vessel separation of 100m or more in rough environmental conditions and with a minimum length of the LNG transfer lines.
FLNG Birth of a Market
FLNG deal-making has been sporadic since Woodside Petroleum at the end of 2013 delayed a final investment decision for the giant Browse FLNG project off Northwest Australia. The previous year had seen go-aheads for most of the floating liquefied natural gas projects (FLNG) underway today, including Shell’s Prelude FLNG — Woodside’s choice, it seems, of a liquefaction solution for fields 200 kilometers offshore. Yet Prelude, “the first project out”, might not be first to produce.
