Samsung Launches World’s Largest Vessel

Jakarta Globe – AFP, December 5, 2013

This Samsung Heavy Industries handout picture taken on Nov. 30, 2013 and released
 on Dec. 5, 2013, shows a South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries’
tanker-shaped vessel tagged as the world’s largest ‘floating facility’, with a length
greater than the height of  the Empire State Building in New York, at a southern
shipyard in Geoje. (AFP Photo/Samsung Heavy Industries)

Seoul. South Korean shipbuilder Samsung Heavy Industries has floated a tanker-shaped vessel tagged as the world’s largest “floating facility” with a length greater than the height of the Empire State Building.

A Samsung spokeswoman said on Thursday that the floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) platform – named “Prelude” – was set in the water at its southern shipyard in Geoje on Nov. 30.

The 488-meter-long vessel cannot be described as a “ship” as it is unable to move under its own steam and must be towed.

But its specifications are impressive, outstripping the 443-meter-tall Empire State Building in New York.

Once complete, the facility will weigh more than 600,000 tons fully loaded, displacing the same amount of water as six of the world’s largest aircraft carriers.

Seventy-four meters wide and 110 meters high, it is expected to produce 3.6 million tons of LNG a year and its storage tanks have a capacity equivalent to approximately 175 Olympic swimming pools.

Commissioned by the Dutch energy giant Shell, the facility is due to be delivered by September 2016.

In a press release on its website, Shell said Prelude would operate in a remote basin around 475 kilometers northeast of Broome, a town in Western Australia, for around 25 years.

It is an all-weather facility designed to withstand the most powerful category-five cyclone.

Agence France-Presse