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ExxonMobil Joins LNG Rush With Barge 6X Bigger Than An Aircraft Carrier

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Not to be left behind, ExxonMobil has signaled that it is ready to join the next phase of the world’s rush into a gas-powered future by filing papers with Australian Government authorities for approval to install a giant floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) barge deep in the Indian Ocean.

Six-times bigger than a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, the ExxonMobil barge, to be built with 50/50 partner BHP Billiton, will be “parked” over the long-dormant Scarborough gas field located about 130 miles off the west Australian coast.

If approved, and ExxonMobil can build the barge as planned, it could be in production by the year 2020, about four years after Royal Dutch Shell commissions its FLNG vessel atop the Prelude gas field, also off the west Australian coast.

Radical in concept, the move towards FLNG production has stirred opposing views in Australia because the giant barges will probably never enter a local port, and perhaps not even employ local crews. They will, however, pay local taxes and have won approval at some levels of government.

Shell and ExxonMobil argue that without FLNG technology the gas in Australia’s remote offshore waters will remain in the ground because it is uneconomic to exploit for the country’s small domestic market, especially given Australia’s high internal costs which have seen it rise to rival Norway as the world’s most expensive country for mineral and oil development.

Shell is the world's first mover in the evolution of FLNG, placing an order for its Prelude barge with Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries in May, 2011 with the aim being to have it operational by 2016 at a cost estimated at US$12 billion.

When in production the Prelude barge will produce a combination of super-chilled natural gas and liquids which will be offloaded to visiting tankers for transport to world markets.

The Shell vessel will weigh about 600,000 tons when fully loaded, be 1600 feet long and 242 feet wide. A Nimitz class aircraft carrier is 1092 feet long and weighs about 100,000 tons.

ExxonMobil said in its filing at the Australian Department of the Environment today that its barge would be approximately 1623 feet long and 246 feet wide with gas fed into its super-chilling system from an initial seven production wells to be drilled in 2018 and 2019, with five more to be drilled to some 15 years later.

Discovered as far back as 1979, the Scarborough gas field was viewed as a disappointment for its 50/50 partners ExxonMobil and BHP Billiton. They had been looking for oil and lacked the technology back then to extract gas from waters more than 3000 feet deep, or pipe it ashore for conversion to LNG.

For several decades the deep water gas fields off the Australian coast were referred to as “orphaned” gas with government agencies estimating that around 140 trillion cubic feet of gas is waiting to be developed.

Other oil companies considering the FLNG option in Australian waters include Japan’s Inpex Corporation, Total of France and Hess Corporation from the U.S.

Shell started the rush with its plans to exploit the estimated 3 trillion cubic feet of gas in the Prelude field. ExxonMobil has the same idea for its estimated 10tcf of gas in Scarborough.

Both Shell and ExxonMobil will try to market their LNG to customers in Asia, potentially reaching markets there about the same time LNG makes its way across the Pacific from U.S. and Canadian LNG projects, if they get government approval to export.