On Monday, Bureau Veritas gave Wison AIP for its new facility with a scalable storage capacity from 150,000cu.m to 265,000cu.m and a base case design of 750 million cubic feet per day regasification capacity expandable to fit project needs.
The FSRU has been designed for near-shore/at-shore application, and can also be deployed offshore with a single point mooring system.
It is estimated that 750MMcfpd equates to about 220 megawatt hours, or about 289 petajoules - a fair chunk considering the Australian Energy Market Operator expects eastern and south-eastern Australia's total gas demand to reach 1972PJ by 2021 and 2076PJ by 2036.
Shanghai-based Wison's vessel is the first large-scale FSRU barge design granted AIP by a classification society, and also marks that Wison is now capable of providing comprehensive range of FSRU solutions catering LNG import markets with various scales of demand.
AGL Energy announced last week that it had chosen Crib Point in Victoria as the preferred site of its proposed $250 million LNG import point, to take advantage of the existing pipeline network, industrial port facility and associated infrastructure.
Brent Emmett, managing director of Australian junior Horizon Oil which is considering Australia as an export target for its proposed small-scale LNG project in Papua New Guinea, told Energy News that Wison's design could suit Australia perfectly.
"It may be that a smaller capacity unit may be more appropriate for AGL's needs, but what I like about the [Wison] concept is that there are fluctuations in the east coast supply [over the] short and medium-term period, but having the capacity to import large volumes of gas and regasify it can smooth out those fluctuations," Emmett said.
"You are always going to get those fluctuations in supply as new fields come on stream and old fields deplete.
"It's not like the US which is a broad, diversified market which can provide a pretty constant gas supply. The Australian market has more lumpy in supply."
Wison's full-size floating LNG terminal solution offers an economical alternative to the conventional LNG regasification vessels (LNG RV), especially for markets with long-term demand.
While Wood Mackenzie forecasts a tight gas supply situation on the east coast, with the risk of a shortfall as early as 2019, AGL will only start building its Crib Point facility by 2020/21.
Wison's barge design lowers initial capital investments - up to 20% compared with LNG RV of equivalent size - as well as operation and maintenance costs, while enabling uninterrupted service throughout project lifecycle.
Wison is soon to deliver world's first FSRU barge under an EPC contract and world's first FLNG barge achieved final delivery most recently.
While leveraging expertise gained through building floating LNG facilities, Wison is also becoming a leader in providing innovative floating solutions for midstream LNG industry by developing full spectrum of products across the supply chain from liquefaction, transportation and distribution, regasification, and gas-to-power.
A month ago, BV also granted AIP for Wison's 50MW floating LNG power supply barge.
"Based on the excellent cooperation on the 25k Exmar FSRU project currently under execution at Wison shipyard, BV is very pleased to support Wison to further develop this large-scale FSRU design targeting a wider range of international clients," BV China technical manager Jiahui Wu said.
