MANILA, Philippines — Ahead of its other planned investments for liquefied natural gas (LNG) facilities in the Asia Pacific region which may include the Philippines, Netherlands-based Royal Dutch Shell plc has announced its Board’s final investment decision on the deployment of the world’s first and largest first floating LNG facility (FLNG) in Australia.

The facility, which will be moored far out to sea, at around 200 kilometers at nearest land in Australia, “will produce gas from offshore fields, and liquefy it onboard by cooling.”

The multinational energy giant explained that the investment decision simply means “that Shell is now ready to start detailed design and construction of what will be the world’s largest floating offshore facility, in a ship yard in South Korea.”

As cast on blueprint, the floating LNG facility will be 488 metres long; and will be distinguished as the “largest floating offshore facility in the world – longer than four soccer fields laid end to end.”

Shell executive director for Upstream International Malcolm Brinded emphasized that “our innovative FLNG technology will allow us to develop offshore gas fields that otherwise would be too costly to develop.”

He further explained that its FLNG technology is considered as the company’s next exciting innovation “complementary to onshore LNG, which can help accelerate the development of gas resources.” At any rate, Shell ranks fairly among the biggest gas producer helping meet the world’s growing energy needs.

Prevailing technologies involved the liquefaction of offshore gas by piping the gas to a land-based plant; but game-change will happen when Shell’s prelude FLNG would progress at a rapid pace, which is expected to have its “first production of LNG expected some ten years after the gas was discovered.”

The facility is anticipated to tap around 3 trillion cubic feet equivalent of resources from prelude gas field. In Australia’s case, Shell made its discovery at a prelude gas filed in 2007.

Brinded underscored that “our decision to go ahead with this project is a true breakthrough for the LNG industry, giving it a significant boost to help meet the world’s growing demand for the cleanest-burning fossil fuel.”

Shell pointed out that the facility will be sturdy that it would be able to withstand severest cyclone, including those of Category 5.

Once it is fully equipped and would already have all the storage tanks full, the company’s FLNG “will weigh around 600,000 tonnes.” By comparison, that will be “roughly six times as much as the largest aircraft carrier.”

The FLNG’s 260,000 tonnes of weight, the company explained will consist of steel, and that will be “around five times more than was used to build the Sydney Harbour Bridge.”

The energy firm portrayed that “ocean-going LNG carriers will offload liquefied gas, chilled to minus162 Celsius and shrunk in volume by 600 times, and other products, directly from the facility out at sea for delivery to markets worldwide.”