Shell Australia has resumed production from its 3.6-million tonne/year (tpy) Prelude floating LNG plant in Browse basin offshore Western Australia after nearly 4 months offline. Restart follows last month’s approval from Australia’s National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) to restart the plant after the regulator was satisfied that proper safety systems were fully in place.
Prelude shut down in December 2021 when the vessel suffered a complete loss of power. Essential services that included lighting, communications, potable water systems, sewage treatment, heating, ventilation, and air conditioning were affected.
Shell was instructed by NOPSEMA to investigate and create a plan to take corrective action and demonstrate the plant could operate safely in the event of power loss before production could restart.
In addition to LNG, Prelude has the capacity to produce 1.3 million tpy of condensate and 400,000 tpy of LPG.
Shell has 67.5% interest, Inpex Corp. 17.5%, Korea Gas Corp. 10%, and CPC Corp. 5%.
