Global Alliance to build floating LNG liquefaction plants

The German company Linde has formed a Global Alliance with Single Buoying Mooring Inc. (SBM) to develop and market FPSOs for the growing LNG industry, based on Linde’s proprietary natural gas liquefaction technology.

SBM is based in the Netherlands and a market leader in the field of FPSOs for the offshore oil & gas industry, currently owning and operating 16 world scale and own-build F(P)SO-units for crude oil and LPG production worldwide. After having finalized a generic concept for a LNG FPSO with a yearly capacity of approximately 2.5 million metric tonnes of LNG, global marketing efforts will now start.

The FPSO is designed for any conventional natural gas composition and aims at offshore natural gas fields with recoverable reserves of 1 trillion cubic feet or more.

Under the Global Alliance Linde contributes the FPSO topsides including gas pre-treatment, C3+ fractionation and natural gas liquefaction based on Linde’s proprietary Multi-Stage-Mixed-Refrigerant process (LiMuM). SBM among other things contributes marine technology including hull and LNG storage tanks system, power generation system, mooring system, cryogenic offloading systems and FPSO operational experience.

The design also incorporates Linde’s experience with Europe’s first base load LNG plant (4.2 million metric tonnes of LNG per year) for Statoil’s “Snohvit” project, which Linde erected on a small island in the Norwegian Arctic Circle utilizing a unique 35,000 tonnes, barge mounted process unit.

The newly formed Global Alliance with SBM is targeting the market of floating LNG facilities, which shall enable the exploitation of off-shore fields, either too remote or too small for a conventional base-load approach. Furthermore, Linde Engineering aims to be a front runner in the field of marine based industrial-chemical plants and this first application fits ideally into this strategy.

It is Linde and SBM’s intention to sell LNG-FPSO’s turn-key or to offer liquefaction services in a build-own-operate model to the LNG industry. Start of LNG production from the first unit is envisaged for 2012.