PERTH (miningweekly.com) - The National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) has cleared energy major Shell to resume operations at its Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (LNG) facility offshore Western Australia.
The Prelude operation in early December last year experienced a fire which resulted in a complete loss of power at the facility, which led to unreliable and intermitted power availability over a three day period.
NOPSEMA launched investigations into the event, and on December 8 mobilised inspectors to the operation, who concluded that Shell did not have a sufficient understanding of the risk of the power system on the facility, including failure mechanisms, independencies and recovery.
The inspectors noted that the power failures directly impacted emergency response capabilities, the operation of safety critical equipment, the habitability of the facility for the personnel on board, and the functionality of process equipment required to effectively manage the LNG inventory.
Repairs to the facility were reportedly completed earlier this month, and NOPSEMA has now given Shell the green light to resume operations. The exact timeframe for the restart is not clear.
The Prelude floating LNG facility has a production capacity of 5.3-million tonnes a year of liquids, 3.6-million tonnes a year of LNG, 1.3-million tonnes a year of condensate and 0.4-million tonnes a year of liquefied petroleum gas.