The first topside module for Petronas’ first Floating LNG (PFLNG1) facility has been lifted into place at Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME)’s shipyard in Okpo, South Korea.

The module lifting marks a further construction milestone for the pioneering facility, which Petronas said will be the world’s first FLNG facility to come into operation, ahead of Shell’s higher-profile Prelude FLNG unit destined for offshore western Australia. The first topside module, on which power generation and control functions instruments will be installed, weighs about 2,000 tons. It was lifted into place about 13 months after topsides construction first began.

A further 20 modules weighing about 40,000 tons remain to be installed on the vessel, with the topside module lifting program scheduled for completion in the first quarter of next year.

DSME and Technip are the consortium jointly developing the PFLNG1 facility, which will have an LNG capacity of 1.2 MM tons per annum, be 365 m (1,197 ft) in length, 60 m (196 ft) wide and 33 m (108 ft) high.

Once built and installed by 2015, the PFLNG1 facility will be moored on the Kanowit field 180 km offshore Sarawak, Malaysia.

  • Petronas also is pushing on with its second FLNG facility (PFLNG 2), which will receive gas from the deepwater Rotan field in Block H offshore Sabah, Malaysia before the end of 2018. PFLNG-2 will produce 1.5 MMtpa of LNG. In February Petronas issued a final investment decision for the second FLNG unit.