MUHAMMAD DANIEL BIN ISMAIL 55104118010

1.0 Historical background of PETRONAS Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (PFLNG)

PETRONAS’ first floating liquid natural gas (LNG) facility also known as PFLNG SATU had
officially received its name in an official ceremony by PETRONAS on 4 March 2016. PFLNG
SATU was first located at the Kanowit gas field about 180 km offshore Bintulu, Sarawak,
Malaysia (Philip, 2017). The construction of PFLNG SATU was a combined effort between
PETRONAS (one of the largest LNG producers in the world), TechnipFMC (a leader in
natural gas liquefaction plants and floating facilities) and DSME (one of the largest ship
builders in the world). PFLNG SATU had the production capacity of 1.2 million tonnes of
LNG per year with complete nitrogen cycle liquefaction process on board (Philip, 2017). The
flowchart below shows the timeline for the construction of PFLNG SATU.

Q4 2010 - Front-end engineering and design (FEED) of facility

Q2 2012 - Start of Engineering, Procurement, Construction, Installation & Commissioning

Q3 2013 - First hull and topsides steel cutting

Q1 2014 - Keel laying

Q2 2014 - Hull launch

Q3 2014 - First module lift

Q1 2015 - Last module lift

Q2 2015 - Commissioning

Q4 2016 - First drop of LNG

The construction starts in June 2013 while the commission activity was on 2016. The first
LNG production was on December 2016 and first cargo loading was on April 2017. After a
successful operation at the Kanowit field in Sarawak, PFLNG SATU had moved to its
second location in earlier 2019 to the Kebabangan field operated by the Kebabangan
Petroleum Operating Company Sdn. Bhd. (KPOC) [CITATION Off20 \l 1033 ]. Earlier this year,
PETRONAS had announced its second floating LNG unit, PFLNG DUA had said sail from
South Korea to Rotan gas field located offshore Sabah, Malaysia. PFLNG DUA was capable
to reached remote, stranded and marginal gas reserve located as low as 1,500m
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underwater thus making it the world’s first floating deep-water LNG vessel [CITATION LNG \l
1033 ].

2.0 Separation techniques implemented in PFLNG

2.1 Adsorption

This adsorption process took place during the removal of mercury in the natural gas.
Mercury would cause stress cracking to occur in the brazed heat exchanger used in
the cryogenic section. To prevent stress cracking from occurring, the mercury in
natural gas needs to meet the specification of below than 0.01 µg/Nm 3. The
conventional method that was used for the removal of mercury was by using a non-
regenerable metal oxide guard bed (Kayat et al., 2012). The adsorbent would be
impregnated with Sulphur for the purpose of mercury adsorption in vapor form from
the natural gas [ CITATION SME20 \l 1033 ]. The natural gas would flow from the top of
the adsorption tower and would flows downward through the adsorbent where the
adsorption of mercury would take place. The mercury would be adsorbed and the
natural gas would exit through the bottom for further processing.
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Figure 2-1: Typical adsorption vessel [ CITATION SME20 \l 1033 ]

2.2 Absorption

Absorption process took place during the removal of carbon dioxide CO2 from the
natural gas. It was important to ensure the level of CO 2 was low as to prevent
freezing in the low-temperature cryogenic unit in the liquefaction section. The CO 2
content in the natural gas need to be less than 50 ppmv. The widely used technology
for the removal of CO2 was by using amine. The reaction would take place in an
absorber column. An aqueous alkanolamine solution would come in contact with the
natural gas in a counter-current motion. The reaction between amine and acidic CO 2
vapors would form dissolved salt thus, allowing the purified natural gas to exit the
absorber. The regeneration of rich amine solution to produce an acid gas stream
filled with high concentration of CO 2 would take place in a stripping column. This
process would happen in a close loop system as the lean solution would be cooled
and returned back to the absorber to repeat the process.

Figure 2-2: Amine technology unit for CO2 removal

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Figure 2-3: Three FLNG pretreatment scheme (Kayat et al., 2012)

3.0 Challenges and difficulties during FLNG installation

The main challenges in project management and execution are the coordination and
interface
management amongst the varied parties involved, the general project planning and
schedule for delivery of kit at the shipyard to support the development schedule of the varied
modules,
the coordination of detailed engineering and detailed risk assessments at various stages of
the project. The biggest challenge faced by FLNG was to construct the same facilities as a
land-based LNG plant on a floating vessel. For the construction of FLNG, the major
constrain was limited space. Different from onshore facility, the floating vessel was affected
by the dimension of the hull structure. The second difficulties faced was in term of weight of
the facility on the floating vessel. Floating systems are space limited, requiring more
compact and lighter equipment to suit the deck space. These systems have high equipment
density and lower equipment count to beat space and weight constraints. High equipment
density substantially increases the potential for explosions (as against deflagrations). within
the event of gas release and ignition, this is able to end in higher impact severities, perhaps
escalating to total facility loss. An FLNG facility must meet both fire loads and escape route
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requirements. Note should be made that thanks to the space constraint, equipment is

meant with ‘fit-for-purpose’ criteria. This reduces the pliability which will be desired. For
instance, turbine waste heat recovery might not be justifiable thanks to the extra weight and
space or center of gravity requirements. The large-scale topside leads to heavy topside
weight (Lee et al., 2014). Next challenges were to design the vessel to reduce the impact of
hull motion [ CITATION Loo14 \l 1033 ]. Due to unpredictable weather in the ocean the vessel
motion also caused a very huge problem for the FLNG. The problems seem to be huge for
the operability and efficiency of process equipment with two phase flow. Sloshing in the
partly filled membrane tanks can be caused by the sea wave motions. The safety altogether
operating modes and every one foreseen feasible situation should be managed. The
pumping of LNG at the cryogenic temperatures offshore (for example, LNG pumping from a
FLNG vessel to LNG carrier at sea) might be challenging. In term of safety, the FLNG can
cause mass hazard because of the presence of hydrocarbon refrigerants for example
propane are highly flammable and need to put extra precautions.

4.0 Solution to overcome the challenges and difficulties during FLNG installation.

Every problem does have their solutions. So, there are some way to overcome the
weaknesses of FLNG. Regarding the management issues, we can establish management
team which is interface management and risk management. For interface management,
they are responsible to identify the main area of interface and to be the first to identify the
way to solve the problem for the coordination and management of the project. Risk
management will be responsible for technical risk analysis, the possible undesirable events
are identified first and then analysed separately for every undesirable event or hazard,
possible improvements or preventive measures are then formulated, including identification
of the needed safety measures, so that the engineering impact is carefully evaluated to
make sure that there are not any cascade effects into the development and commissioning
phases of the project.
For the space constrain problem, we can implement high density equipment and this will
overcome two problems which is regarding space constrain and also weight of facility
problem. We also mentioned about weight of facility on FLNG problem. This problem was
managed to be settle by creating an efficient hull structure arrangement and this will lessen
the weight on the FLNG efficiently. One of the main problems that we were facing when
working offshore was hull motion. This kind of problem can simply solve by installing
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perforated baffles or proprietary internals inside process vessels and tanks to dampen liquid
challenges. Hogging and sagging of deck equipment support and piping flexibility can be
considered to reduce the hull motion.
Next problem that we faced during the installation of FLNG was vessel motion. This
problem was solved by rearranging process equipment that is sensitive to vessel movement
close to the floating vessel’s center line. Utilizing hull storage in twin row tanks cuts down
the sloshing issues while also providing a strong deck with support within the middle to
assist take heavy topsides loads. Finally challenges in term of safety on the FLNG. The
control of process-related hazards requires more robust pump package designs. For
example, the mechanical integrity of a pump train, ignition source control systems, explosion
and overpressure cases should be considered. Pumping potentially large inventories of
liquids and hydrocarbon refrigerants represents a serious hazard and all of this required to
add safety measures.

Challenges Solution
1. Coordination and interface  Interface management
management amongst the various  Risk management
parties involved
2. Space constrain  High equipment density is needed to
overcome space and weight
constraints
3. Weight of facility on FLNG  An efficient hull structure
arrangement was required along
with the increase in weight.
4. To minimize hull motion  Install perforated baffles/proprietary
internals inside process vessels and
tanks to dampen liquid challenges.
 Considering hogging and sagging of
the deck equipment support as well
as piping flexibility.
5. Vessel motion  process equipment that is sensitive
to vessel movement should be
located close to the floating vessel’s
center line
 hull storage in twin row tanks cuts
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down the sloshing issues

6. Safety  more robust pump package
designs. 
  the utilization of concrete for the
hull provides benefits within
the storage of cryogenic
fluids because it retains its structural
integrity when in touch with LNG.
 added safety measures.
Table 1: Difficulties during the installation of FLNG and its way to overcome

5.0 Advantages of FLNG project

FLNG produces clean natural gas that cause less harm compared to other fuel. Natural gas
is comparatively clean burning compared to other fossil fuels. it's also more easily found,
cheaper and truly provides variety of environmental and economic advantages. One of the
benefits FLNG had over the onshore LNG facilities was it doesn’t require excessive pipeline
as it was able to store the extracted gas on a facility near the fields. This would also lead to
minimize the needs for onshore construction. The natural habitat in the ocean will also not
disturbed from the construction or pipeline from FLNG. Furthermore, the by using floating
vessel, we may discover even more resources that cannot be discovered before the FLNG
exist. The FLNG also have the same facilities as LNG plant and much more convenience
since it can be decommissioned and re-deployed elsewhere relatively easily. Since there
are couple more FLNG are in developments, they will open much more job opportunities in
future and this can give positive impact on the economy.
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6.0 Conclusion

Malaysia manages to be on par with other developed country in term of natural gas
production after Petronas manage to produce Petronas Floating Liquified Natural Gas
(PFLNG). We manage to be one of the fastest countries to successfully develop this
extensive industrial engineering, procurement and installation. The success from the first
PFLNG which named PFLNG SATU, we managed to produce the second batch of PFLNG
which is then named PFLNG DUA. Many challenges and difficulties that we need to
overcome but in the end experts all over the country manage to deal with the impossibility
and make it happened. This success was not only our own effort but also our partnership
with global level companies. Now, Malaysia name already huge globally but not domestically
in this industry. After completing this final assessment, I realized the importance of PFLNG
not only for our nation but globally. I also understand the needs and the importance of this
technology for future generation. From this moment I will try to popularized FLNG industries
to make people realize on the importance and hoping that this technologies will be develop
more in the future.

7.0
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References
LNG World News. (2020, February 18). Offshore Energy. Retrieved from Navingo:
https://www.offshore-energy.biz/petronas-second-flng-unit-heads-out-to-rotan-gas-field/

Offshore Energy Today. (2019, March 21). Offshore Energy. Retrieved from Navingo: offshore-
energy.biz/petronas-kicks-off-first-production-from-flng-satu-after-recent-location-
change/

Kayat, Z., Schott, M., Doong, S., Subris, R., & Farr, D. (2012). Pretreatment of acid gas in feed
for petronas floating LNG facility. International Gas Union World Gas Conference Papers,
4, 3775–3785.

Lee, D. H., Ha, M. K., Kim, S. Y., & Shin, S. C. (2014). Research of design challenges and new
technologies for floating LNG. International Journal of Naval Architecture and Ocean
Engineering, 6(2), 307–322. https://doi.org/10.2478/IJNAOE-2013-0181

Philip, H. (2017). Petronas FLNG Satu.