Emerson Expands Role in Shell's Massive Prelude FLNG Project in Australia

Researched by Industrial Info Resources (Sugar Land, Texas)--Royal Dutch Shell plc's (NYSE:RDS.A) (The Hague, Netherlands) Australian subsidiary announced Wednesday that it had chosen Emerson Process Management (NYSE:EMR) (St. Louis, Missouri) to provide automation maintenance and reliability services for Shell's Prelude Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) Facility, which is the world's largest FLNG production complex. Industrial Info is tracking $2.71 billion in other projects involving Emerson.

Emerson has served as main automation contractor on the Prelude project since 2010. In a press release announcing the new multi-year support contract, Emerson said that its offshore and onshore personnel (the latter at Shell's operations center in Perth) will provide ongoing reliability and maintenance services for a broader range of equipment.

Along with local business partner Western Process Controls (Perth, Australia), Emerson will provide equipment monitoring, diagnostic services, spares support and maintenance for the facility's control and safety systems, as well as thousands of instruments and valves, according to the press release.

Industrial Info has been tracking the Prelude FLNG project since 2010; its funding was approved by Shell in 2011, and construction began in October 2012. The facility will receive, process, store and offload gas from the Prelude Gas Field, with a production capacity of 3.6 million metric tonnes per year of liquefied natural gas (LNG), plus 400,000 metric tonnes per year of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) and 1.3 million metric tonnes per year of condensate. Shell owns 67.5% of the project, while INPEX owns 17.5%, Kogas owns 10%, and CPC owns 5%.

Industrial Info is keeping tabs on two major components of the project, the $10 billion production platform and a $2.6 billion subsea development for natural gas wells, as well as the $153.4 million subsea fiber-optic cable that will service both the Prelude and Ichthys LNG projects. For more information, see Industrial Info's project reports on the production facility, subsea development and fiber-optic cable.

The other Emerson projects tracked by Industrial Info span Bangladesh, Brazil, India and the U.K., with the latter accounting for the bulk of the total investment value of the non-Prelude projects. The largest U.K. project on which Emerson is serving is Maersk Oil's (Copenhagen, Denmark) Culzean offshore processing complex in the North Sea, which is divided into three parts: the $1 billion central processing platform, the $700 million accommodation platform, and the $500 million wellhead platform. Emerson was awarded the contract in March.

The three platforms will be linked by a bridge. The central processing platform will feature a flare tower, while the accommodation platform will be able to house at least 100 personnel. The production capacity of the field is expected to be about 400 million standard cubic feet per day. For more information, see Industrial Info's project reports on the central processing, accommodation and wellhead platforms.

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