US Delfin LNG Moves to Feed Stage

US group Delfin Midstream is pushing ahead with front-end engineering design (Feed) work at its planned floating LNG (FLNG) complex off Louisiana.

The company has hired Samsung Heavy Industries (SHI) and Black & Veatch to perform the work on a newbuild FLNG vessel, it said on October 29. The pair also completed a pre-Feed study for the scheme earlier this year.

The Feed study should be completed by the mid-2020, at which point Delfin also plans to have agreed a term sheet with SHI and Black & Veatch for an engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning contract. Delfin noted it was on track to take a final investment decision on the project next year.

Delfin wants to position up to four FLNG vessels in the Gulf of Mexico capable of producing a total of 13mn mt/yr of LNG. While many larger land-based LNG export projects try to cut their costs through economies of scale, Delfin said it would be able to make its project competitive, with total capital costs of $500-550 t/yr, by re-purposing existing offshore pipelines to supply the complex with gas and building the FLNG vessels at low-cost Asian shipyards.

“The two most important innovations of the last 20 years in the global gas market have been the shale gas revolution and the emergence of floating LNG technologies for regasification and liquefaction,” Delfin CEO Dudley Poston said. “Delfin combines these two innovations to offer the LNG market a low cost, simple and flexible LNG supply solution.”

Delfin also has plans for a second FLNG project in the Gulf of Mexico, Avocet, which would turn out up to 8mn mt/yr of LNG.