Page 9 - GLNG Week 36

GLNG COMMENTARY GLNG

Restart troubles for

Australian LNG facilities

Attempts to restart Prelude FLNG and the second train at

Gorgon are running into obstacles and taking longer than

initially expected

PROJECTS & ATTEMPTS to restart the second train at Gor- the repairs and returning Train 2 to service in
COMPANIES gon LNG and the Prelude floating LNG (FLNG) September, but now says it expects the facility to
facility – liquefaction capacity that has been be restarted in October.
WHAT: offline in Australia – are running into obstacles. The company said that following its ongo-
Chevron and Shell The challenges illustrate the complexity of the ing technical work, it was further refining its
have separately run projects involved, and while operators Chevron approach and had decided that some welds in
into challenges as and Royal Dutch Shell have sought to downplay targeted areas would require additional work.
they attempt to bring the setbacks, more issues cannot be ruled out This comes after the Australian Manufacturing
liquefaction facilities in before the facilities are back online. Workers Union said in July that cracks up to 1
Australia back online. While the ongoing outages represent a setback metre long and 30mm deep were found on 8-11
to the facilities’ operators, however, the broader kettles on Train 2. The trade union raised con-
WHY: industry may welcome them as it struggles with cerns that the heat exchangers would need to
More time is needed the global glut of LNG, which is still being exac- be replaced altogether, so while the repairs are
to bring Gorgon Train 2 erbated by new capacity coming online in the more extensive than Chevron initially expected,
back online, while an US. it appears that this is not the worst-case scenario.
attempted restart of However, there has been speculation that
Prelude is reported to Extra time welding work on the cracks was initially per-
have failed. On September 3, Chevron Australia said it formed incorrectly, and needed to be redone.
would require extra time to complete repairs of The loss of LNG production as a result of the
WHAT NEXT: propane heat exchangers – or kettles – on Train outage is thought to be costing several million
The ongoing outages 2 at the Gorgon terminal on Barrow Island, off dollars per day.
may be welcomed the north-west coast of Western Australia. The Chevron is also due to take Trains 1 and 3
by the industry as it super-major discovered cracks in the kettles dur- offline to inspect the heat exchangers for simi-
struggles with global LNG ing routine maintenance on the train that began lar issues, and now says it hopes that the work
oversupply. in May and was subsequently extended to carry at Train 2 can help those inspections – and any
out the necessary repairs. necessary repairs – to be more efficient. Initially,
Chevron had initially anticipated completing there were suggestions that the entire facility

Chevron will stagger
the closure of the other
trains at Gorgon.

Week 36 11•September•2020 www. NEWSBASE .com P9