In a world first project of extraordinary scale.
Shell is building a giant floating facility
that will liquefy natural gas at sea.
And from the shipyards in Korea, to the remote waters of Australia.
Right across the world, 2015 has been a year
of remarkable achievement.
We are that close from achieving something quite fantastic.
In Geoje, Prelude continued to take shape at an astonishing pace.
We watched the last of the topside modules installed on to the hull.
I can relax now, it’s down safe and sound. No incidents again.
We saw the enormous storage tanks take shape inside the hull.
This cargo tank, which is for LNG, is 39,000 cubic metres.
It’s really like a cathedral I think. Yes it is.
And we climbed up to the top of Prelude’s 180m long flare tower.
The wind’s picking up a bit as you get higher.
This is it hey (laughs).
The flare system is the ultimate safety device.
During normal operations, the flare will not be used and it will basically help us
during start up and then during normal operations in case of process upsets.
And holding everything to the seabed, was the great chain of Spain.
The rain in Spain falls mainly on the chain.
The chain is laid out on the quayside.
So in the coming few days we're going to load these chains on board the ship.
and then they will be off to Batam in Indonesia.
Measuring 17 kilometres long,
weighing nearly10 and a half thousand tonnes.
It’s the largest chain of its kind ever built.
In the remote north of Australia,
the sun was setting on a very different project,
in a very different world.
Yeh, that’s the well there yes.
And far does that go down?
About 4100 metres vertically.
Yes, go ahead and pull em, pull em. Let’s make sure nothing comes out of them.
After two years, the wells campaign on the Noble Clyde Boudreaux
was coming to an end.
So we’ve drilled 7 wells, we’re coming up to the end of our campaign.
We’ve completed 5 wells and we’ve only got two more to complete
and we’re ready for Prelude.
We’ve achieved everything we set out to achieve and in that time
we started out as small groups of separate people and today we are one family.
And working right beside her was the Deep Energy
as installation of Prelude’s subsea equipment began.
Very, very fine balancing act between the weight on the crane and on the wire.
We’re essentially building an underwater city without people
and the purpose of it is to provide hydrocarbons to the FLNG safely.
12 kilometres of flowlines and 8 plets were installed
in one of the world’s most remote locations.
And they'll soon be joined by the production manifolds and risers.
So this is the last stop for the FLNG.
It is like a big tap, which separates the hydrocarbons from the FLNG.
After four years in construction, the subsea delivery team was getting ready for their final test.
I think we’re good, the people are coming off, so we’re ready to go.
Well done.
And right across the border Darren Yates was having triplets, again.
This is the second of my three babies as it were.
And have they been good kids or bad kids?
So far very well behaved. A little more so than my triplets at home.
Prelude’s support vessel the RT Kuri Bay, was ready to launch into the world.
We're building three vessels and there will be two on station, 24/7.
She’s going to be bringing the product carriers alongside Prelude.
With a Singapore storm lighting up the night,
giant airbags were inflated and she was slowly lowered into the water.
As the sun came up, the tides did the rest.
Fantastic, absolutely spectacular to see.
Executed to perfection and she’s looking beautiful in the water.
2015 has been a year of remarkable achievements,
for a truly remarkable project.
As step by step,
piece by piece,
Prelude FLNG continues to become a reality.
It’s a tremendous achievement, where we’ve got to.
But we’ve got to keep going
and for those challenges that we have remaining,
we’ve got to find, safe, reliable, time orientated solutions
so we can get the facility offshore Australia and operational.
Here she is.
Ha!