Eni and its Area 4 partners held the “First Steel Cut” ceremony on September 6 at Geoje Island, South Korea, to mark the beginning of the construction of the Hull of Coral South’s Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) vessel. The event was held in the presence of Mozambique’s Minister of Mineral Resources and Energy, Ernesto Max Tonela.
The ceremony took place just 15 months after Coral South Project’s Final Investment Decision, highlighting the commitment of Area 4 Partners to start LNG production by 2022.
The Hull is designed to accommodate the storage facilities for all the substances that will be processed and produced in the floating liquefaction plant, mainly Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) and condensates. In addition to the storage tanks, some of the electrical, instrumentation and mechanical rooms, as well as all maritime systems related to cargo management, will be located in the Hull.
The FLNG construction started with the steel cut for the ship’s Turret, which took place in March this year in Singapore.
The other main component of the FLNG, the topside modules, will also be built in South Korea at the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyards and the construction is planned to start end of this year. The FLNG is expected to be completed by the end of 2021 and first gas is expected in 2022.
Eni is the delegated operator for the Coral South FLNG project, the first project to monetise the world class gas resources discovered in Area 4, Mozambique. The Area 4 participants are Eni (25%), ExxonMobil (25%), CNPC (20%), Empresa Nacional de Hidrocarbonetos E.P. (10%), Kogas (10%) and Galp Energia (10%).
