A hull longer than the Empire State Building is tall has been floated out of dry dock in Geoje, South Korea. Measuring 488 m (1,601 ft) long and 74 m (243 ft) wide, the hull belongs to Shell's Prelude floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) facility, which upon completion will be the largest floating facility ever built.

Intended to allow production of natural gas, the processing of it into liquefied natural gas (LNG) and finally the transfer directly to transport ships, all while at sea, the Prelude will weigh more than 600,000 tonnes (661,400 tons) fully loaded and is expected to produce around 3.6 million tonnes (3.9 million tons) of LNG per year. Its total storage capacity is over 430 million liters (114 million US gal), or equivalent to around 175 Olympic swimming pools.

The Prelude FLNG will operate in a remote basin around 475 km (295 miles) northeast of Broome, Western Australia for around 25 years. The area's cyclone season runs from late November to April, but the Prelude is designed to remain onsite all year-round in all weather conditions.

It has been designed to withstand a category 5 cyclone and will be secured in place by one of the largest mooring systems in the world. This consists of a 93-m (305-ft) high turret, (which is large enough to house the Arc de Triomphe) that runs through the Prelude and is anchored to the seabed by four groups of mooring lines.

David Fuller's view

Royal Dutch Shell’s floating natural gas plant is on schedule to commence production in 2017, northeast of Broome, Western Australia.  The first big challenge for Prelude is likely to be the region’s cyclone season from November to April.  With a personal long-term investment in RDSB, I will be watching with interest, hoping that earnings from this project will help to underpin the share’s current yield of 7.36%.

Shell’s video on this ambitious project is interesting.