Mozambique Oil & Gas: “Eni’s Coral South FLNG vessel construction scheduled to September”

South Korean yard Samsung Heavy Industries is expected to start fabrication of the floating liquefied natural gas vessel for Eni’s Coral South project off Mozambique in September, writes Xu Yihe.

“Steel cutting of the hull is now decided for September,” said one industry source with direct knowledge of the floater’s fabrication schedule. The source added that shop design of the vessel has been completed.

Fabrication of the floater’s topsides will then get underway in November and Japan’s JGC is ready to release the detailed design of the topside to Samsung very soon, added the source.

According to the EPC contract, fabrication will take about 60 months to complete from June last year, when Italian operator Eni awarded a consortium of London-based TechnipFMC, JGC of Japan and SHI the contract to build the FLNG vessel for the $7 billion Coral South project.

The FLNG vessel will boast a length of 439 metres, a width of 65 metres and weigh about 210,000 tonnes. It is designed to produce 3 million tonnes per annum of LNG and 480,000 tpa of condensate.

TechnipFMC and JGC will be responsible mainly for the engineering and procurement work for the vessel’s topsides and the management of the overall project.

In addition to the FLNG vessel, TechnipFMC is also responsible for its associated risers and the subsea flowline system as well as the installation of umbilicals and subsea equipment in about 2000 metres of water.

Samsung will be responsible for EPC work on the hull and fabrication of the topsides.

Under a 20-year contract, UK supermajor BP has already agreed to an offtake deal for all the LNG.

The first cargo is scheduled for 2022

Located in water depths of about 2300 metres, each of the field’s six development wells will produce about 150 million cubic feet per day of gas.

Eni has recently completed the sale of a 25% interest in the natural gas-rich Area 4 where Coral South is located in the Rovuma basin, off Cabo Delgado province, to US supermajor ExxonMobil.

Eni will remain as operator of all upstream operations and continue to lead the Coral FLNG project.

ExxonMobil will lead the construction and operation of liquefaction facilities onshore where a major project is also planned.