The Coral Sul, a floating liquefied natural gas storage and offloading unit (FLNG) built and delivered by Samsung Heavy Industries, has recently passed performance tests. As the first FLNG in Africa, it is expected to help Mozambique to develop LNG gas fields.
Air Products, an industrial gases company, announced that the company’s dual mixed refrigerant LNG process technology (AP-DMR™) and equipment for the Coral Sul FLNG in Mozambique has passed a performance test to achieve LNG production capacity in excess of 3.4 million tons per year.
Air Products’ AP-DMR™ was said to have been selected as the process technology for its outstanding efficiency, reliability and compact design. The AP-DMR™ process is capable of achieving lower carbon emissions by combining it with an aero-derivative engine than all other LNG processes used in floating installations.
Air Products has been involved with the Coral Sul FLNG project since 2013 from the conceptual design stage and is responsible for supplying AP-DMR™ LNG process technology and equipment, including two proprietary Coil-Wound Heat Exchangers (CWHEs) for pre-cooling and liquefaction within the facility, respectively.
CWHE is manufactured at Air Products’ LNG equipment facility in Fort Manatee, Florida. In addition, the company is responsible for providing specialized technical consulting services throughout the installation, commissioning, start-up and performance evaluation phases.
Participation in the Coral Sul FLNG project is a significant achievement and marks the first application of AP-DMR™ LNG process technology,” said Air Products. This passing of the performance test is a testament to the company’s expertise and collective experience in all aspects of the LNG industry.”
It is reported that FLNG is a mobile composite plant that produces, refines, stores, handles LNG floating at sea. “Coral Sul” is the first FLNG in Africa, and also the fourth large-scale FLNG completed and delivered in the world so far, ranking second in the world in size.
The Coral-Sul FLNG project valued at a total of $5.4 billion was successfully awarded in June 2017 to ReefConsortium, a consortium formed by Samsung Heavy Industries in conjunction with France’s Technip and Japan’s JGC. Among them, Samsung Heavy Industries is responsible for engineering, procurement and construction with a contract value of about $2.54 billion, while Technip and JGC are responsible for the engineering and procurement work of the topside module.
The Coral Sul measures 439 meters long, 65 meters wide and 38.5 meters high, with a deadweight of 210,000 tons, and is capable of producing approximately 3.4 million tons of LNG per year. The FLNG, which started construction at Samsung Heavy Industries in 2018 for delivery in November 2021, has an topside consisting of 12 processing modules with a total weight of approximately 70,000 tons.
As a production unit from drilling to liquefaction, the FLNG has the advantage of protecting the subsea ecosystem without the need for onshore liquefaction storage or subsea pipelines, and is the first FLNG ever deployed in deep water, at a depth of approximately 2,000 meters.
The FLNG will be deployed at the Coral South project in Block 4 of the Rovuma Basin near the coast of Cabo Delgado province in northern Mozambique.The Coral gas field is located in Block 4, 250 kilometers northeast of Pembashi, Mozambique. Korea Gas Corporation (KOGAS) has a 10% stake; Rovuma Ventures, a joint venture between ExxonMobil, Eni and PetroChina, has a 70% stake; and Portugal’s Galp Energia and Mozambique’s ENH each have a 10% stake.