The first contract covers the front-end engineering design (FEED) elements specific to the Prelude project, taking into account the composition of gas, local weather conditions and other site-specific factors.
The second contract details the terms under which the floating LNG facility would be built if a final investment decision for the project is made.
The signing of the two contracts follows a master agreement inked last July between Shell and the Technip-Samsung consortium to work on the design, construction and installation of multiple floating LNG facilities over a period of up to 15 years.
Last October, Shell announced it was planning to develop its Prelude and Concerto fields using FLNG, the first such application of its technology.
In a statement, Technip said planning for Prelude was progressing well.
Prelude has estimated reserves of about 2.5-3.0 trillion cubic feet of gas and about 120 million barrels of condensate, while the super-major has yet to announce reserves for the Concerto find, discovered in March this year.
Both fields are located in Shell's wholly owned WA-371-P permit.
The Prelude FLNG development will be capable of producing 3.5 million tonnes of LNG per annum and of handling liquefied petroleum gas and condensate, taking total liquid production up to, and in excess of, 5MMtpa.
A final investment decision on the project is targeted by early 2011. It would take about five years from FID for the 600,000t FLNG vessel to be constructed in Korea and towed to the Prelude field, 475 kilometres north-northeast of Broome.
While the facility is being built, Shell said it would contract a third-party mobile offshore drilling unit to drill eight subsea production wells.
Development drilling for the development is expected to start in 2013 and take about two years.
The wells will be drilled to a depth of about 5400m and tied back to the subsea manifolds before being connected to the FLNG facility via flowlines.
The FLNG installation and hook-up is expected to take about six months with commissioning in 2015 before first gas in 2016.
