2005 Annual Report - SBM Offshore

Report of the Board of Management
In special areas having offshore subterranean salt deposits,
like the Gulf of Mexico, Floating Regasification Units (FRUs)
can be used to offload and regasify LNG, sending the gas
directly to subsea salt cavern storage and / or pipeline. These
FRUs have much larger heat exchangers to rapidly warm the
offloaded gases. The system can also be combined with
partial storage as on an FSRU to reduce the size of the
regasification system or to minimise the standby time of the
trading vessel.
Ship-to-Ship Transfer of LNG
The offloading of standard carriers must be done using midship
manifolds. Presently the lack of cryogenic hose
technology requires this offloading to be done in a side-byside
mode with cryogenic loading arms. Side-by-side (SBS)
mooring and loading arms presently have only been proven
for relatively small sea states.
To increase the applicability of the FSRUs to more than the
benign proven sea states, development work has focused on
higher capacity SBS berthing and mooring applications as
well as a new more capable dynamic loading arm.
A Soft Quay Mooring (SQM) system has been developed to
increase both the safety of the berthing operation as well as
the offloading sea state threshold. The SQM consists of a
weighted quay suspended from articulated arms held 20 to
30 metres away from the side of the FSRU. This quay holds
Full scale testing of a toroidal cryogenic swivel at the Company’s testing
facility in the South of France
40
A ‘Soft Quay Mooring’ allows offloading of an LNG carrier into an FSRU
at high sea states
the carrier at a much greater distance than possible with
normal side-by-side mooring fenders. This distance provides
an ample space to avoid contact between the LNG carrier
and the FSRU, both during berthing and offloading
operations. Should the berthing carrier approach the SQM
too fast, the articulating arms will deflect and absorb the
carrier momentum without suffering any damage.
Berthing during the higher sea states possible with this new
side-by-side SQM will result in much higher differential
motions for the cryogenic loading arms transferring the
cargo. Presently there are no commercially available loading
arms that can meet these larger requirements. To make this
type of loading arm available for these higher sea states a
development is being progressed jointly with a loading arm
manufacturer.
Cryogenic Swivels
Cryogenic swivels capable of long continuous operation
below the minus 162 degree Celsius temperature of LNG at
atmospheric pressure, are required for single point mooring
LNG loading systems. An in-line LNG swivel was tested in
2004 for a 5 year simulated life with LNG. This test was used
to qualify seals and materials for a larger toroidal LNG swivel
required for the Company’s single point LNG SPM loading
systems. The stages of design, fabrication and assembly of a
20 inch toroidal swivel were completed in 2005. This swivel is
currently under test and will be certified for its intended use
in the second quarter of 2006.