Samsung Heavy Industries has completed the first deck stacking operation for topsides modules of Eni’s Coral South FLNG facility at its shipyard in Geoje, South Korea, a year after first steel was cut for the topsides.
Coral FLNG is being built for Area 4, an Eni-operated project offshore Mozambique that will put in production 450 billion m3 of gas from the giant Coral reservoir. The hull is expected to be launched in 2020, in line with the planned production startup of the Coral South project in 2022. When completed, it will be the first FLNG vessel ever deployed in a deepwater field offshore the African continent.
TechnipFMC won a contract for the engineering, procurement, construction, installation, commissioning, and start-up of Coral South in June 2017, as part of the TJS Consortium with JGC and Samsung Heavy Industries. The contract also covers the facility’s associated risers and subsea flowlines system, as well as the installation of the umbilicals and subsea equipment.
Construction of the mooring turret for the FLNG facility began in March 2018, and construction of the hull’s 24 modules containing the LNG storage tanks and sections of the treatment facilities began in September of that year. Construction of the topside, which consists of 12 gas treatment and LNG modules, started last November, along with the living quarters.
The vessel will be able to house up to 350 people in its 8-story accommodation module. The facility will be anchored at a 2000-m water depth by means of 20 mooring lines weighing a combined 9,000t.
Eni, ExxonMobil, CNPC, Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos, Kogas, and Galp Energia each hold ownership stakes in Area 4.
TechnipFMC announced the completion of the first deck stacking operation for the topsides on social media.