Rob Jager cannot be as naive as this, he has a distinguished career in Shell and also been appointed by the New Zealand Government to lead investigations into the tragic Mining accident some years ago. Clearly not a numpty so why is he making such statements claiming the Prelude is such a magnificent project it will operate perfectly and become boring.
Hydrocarbon Production Operations that I have experienced over many years have never been boring ever. Every day brings something different to be addressed and Prelude is and will be no different. Prelude is not receiving a semi-processed feed stack to refine or reform or blend but raw reservoir hydrocarbons. Even in the case of a rich gas hydrocarbon reservoir, the well effluent will contain a full range of hydrocarbon gas mixtures, carbon dioxide, hydrogen sulphide water vapour and a whole host of trace gasses and other undesirable soluble and insoluble salts. Notwithstanding during initial production or subsequent well work-over, residual drilling fluids and completion debris some of which will have found its way into the umbilicals and hydraulic well control and safety shut down systems and cause untold havoc.read more
Upstream Online: Shell learns from Prelude challenges
Shell is currently in the process of ramping up its Prelude floating liquefied natural gas development off Western Australia, but the ambitious project …
Extract ends
Printed below are extracts from recent postings on our Shell Blog relating to the above Upstream Online article and its interview with Shell VP Prelude, Bob Jager.
Posting on 19 August 2019
I would be interested to know the content of the article just published by Upstream Online about the Prelude FLNG problems?
What I do know is that Prelude is still having difficulties in with the processed volumes of any of the three streams of product, LNG, LPG and condensate.
I have been monitoring the Marine Traffic web site with Prelude as the target. The offtake tankers, LNG or condensate, can be seen hanging around but at a greater distance from Prelude making it not as easy to keep track of as in previous occasions. The latest LNG tanker, Symphonic Breeze, has been nearby for nearly a week waiting for its nominated cargo. The demurrage costs must be quite high by now as the “notice of readiness” will have been tabled on arrival.read more
Shell’s global chief executive Ben van Beurden has declared a global carbon price of about $US250 a tonne and “tens of thousands” of carbon capture and storage plants would be needed for the world to keep within the 2 degree warming goal.
Nature-based carbon offsets “to the tune of the Amazon” and a “massive” electrification of energy supply would also be needed he said in Sydney, ahead of a meeting with Prime Minister Scott Morrison where energy and climate policy – and the troubled east coast gas market – were set to be discussed.read more
Royal Dutch Shell confirmed that there was no impact to operations at the Prelude floating LNG facility as a result of the earthquake. The company had earlier declined to comment.
JULY 15, 2019
MELBOURNE, July 15 (Reuters) – Oil and gas operations onshore and offshore Western Australia were unaffected by a magnitude 6.6 earthquake that struck off the northern coast of the state on Sunday, the country’s offshore petroleum safety regulator and companies said.
“NOPSEMA has not received any reports of impacts to offshore oil and gas facilities following the earthquake,” a spokesman for the National Offshore Petroleum Safety and Environmental Management Authority (NOPSEMA) said.read more
Overnight intelligence information about Shell Prelude sent to retired Shell International HSE consultant, Bill Campbell
Bill,The second LNG off take looks like being imminent. It’s the Methane Julia Louise, the red shape under the yellow tracking trial. The blue dot below with a hello anchor sign is the Prelude The other blue dots are either standby boat, supply boat or tug.
It looks as though there is still “trouble at mill” as its almost 24 days since the first cargo which would suggest around running at 25% capacity. read more
MELBOURNE, June 19 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell sees more opportunities for floating liquefied natural gas projects, but not necessarily like its $17 billion Prelude operation off Australia, which shipped its first cargo last week, over two years behind schedule.
Shell Australia Chair Zoe Yujnovich said on Wednesday that it was too early to tell whether Prelude, one of two floating LNG (FLNG) projects in the world, would be replicated in future, as the company was still commissioning the project.read more
* Prelude seals Australia as world’s top LNG exporter
* Prelude marks last of Australia’s $200 bln LNG construction boom
* Start-up comes amid glut in LNG market
* Rival Ichthys LNG could sap some Prelude gas reserves (Adds comment on Prelude gas sources)
By Sonali Paul
MELBOURNE, June 11 (Reuters) – Royal Dutch Shell on Monday shipped the long-awaited first cargo of liquefied natural gas from its massive Prelude floating LNG plant off northwest Australia, sealing the nation’s position as the world’s top exporter of the fuel.read more
Alarming Facts About Shell Prelude Problems Emerge in Official Australian GOVERNMENT Report – Notifiable Incident
Extracts from official report…
Dangerous Occurrence
Summary
Operator advised the offload tanker (LNGC Gallina) was alongside the facility. At 1940hrs during routine checks in preparation for the connection of the loading arms it was identified that one of the forward mooring lines had parted. At 1950hrs following further checks, concerns were raised over the condition of other forward mooring lines. At 1958hrs a decision was made to carry out a controlled release of the vessel. At 2015hrs the vessel left the facility and returned to the holding area. An investigation will be conducted of the matter. Cronin tried to return the operators call but could not get through or leave a message.read more
Singapore — The 97,730 dwt LNG tanker Valencia Knutsen has been circling near Shell’s Prelude FLNG vessel to load the first LNG cargo from the facility in Western Australia, according to Platts trade flow software cFlow.
The Spanish-flagged Valencia Knutsen departed the port of Darwin on June 2 and has been in the vicinity of Prelude FLNG since June 3, Platts cFlow showed.
The loading of the first LNG cargo will mark the startup of exports from one of the world’s most anticipated LNG projects, also the world’s largest floating LNG platform, adding to Australia’s LNG export capacity.read more
The mooring failures are indeed a concern but it is very doubtful they were the main contributor to the startup delay even if they are “shoehorned” into a very congested construction.
The process design is a well proven, a design in use in many of the LNG plants in many countries.read more
The article below was brought to my attention by industry experts, one of whom made the following comment:
XXXXX was shocked when he read this as the damage to the mooring system was much worse than he originally thought from reports, it appears it may have been the mooring system that has caused delays not so much the process.
The giant Prelude floating LNG facility is close to exporting its first LNG, almost two years after it arrived in Australian waters from Korea during which it has had several problems bringing vessels alongside.
Shell director of gas and new energies Maarten Wetselaar yesterday told investors that Prelude had been producing LNG for more than a week and the first shipment of LNG was imminent.
The Spanish LNG carrier Valencia Knutsen, which was moored off Darwin for some days, yesterday moved to the vicinity of Prelude, 475km north-east of Broome, according to vessel tracking site Marine Traffic.read more
LONDON, June 4 (Reuters) – Shipment of the first liquefied natural gas (LNG) cargo from the long-awaited Prelude floating production project in Australia is “imminent”, Royal Dutch Shell said on Tuesday.
Prelude – the world’s biggest floating LNG production unit and the biggest maritime vessel ever built – is expected to have an annual LNG production capacity of 3.6 million tonnes.
It will also produce 1.3 million tonnes a year of condensate and 400,000 tonnes a year of liquefied petroleum gas (LPG).read more
Reading Rob Jäger, who I knew in Shell many years past, is like listening somewhat to my comments about Prelude starting way back in 2012 or so being replayed and replayed………suddenly, everything is not so tickety-boo. Think it’s telling that this historically proud, nay boastful and confident project so sure and aware of itself in the past is so reluctant to give a firm start-up date for LNG and so reluctant to just tell the world why?
By retired Shell Global Safety Consultant, Bill Campbell
Just some background thoughts, we all wish this project well but there is a lot that doesn’t appear to stack up in the Jager piece
Reading Rob Jäger, who I knew in Shell many years past, is like listening somewhat to my comments about Prelude starting way back in 2012 or so being replayed and replayed………suddenly, everything is not so tickety-boo. Rob talks about safety and risk so underplayed before, he talks about large vessel but small area for LNG plant so underplayed before, he talks about risk almost discounted before because Prelude was so safe , now Safety, safety is the key, its the first project by the way in the long history of Shell that is in his words NOT driven by milestones and schedule, sorry don’t believe a word of it.read more
Shell veteran Rob Jager had been contemplating retirement in his native New Zealand when he got called up to take responsibility for the world’s biggest offshore facility.
When he arrived in Perth in November, Shell’s 488m-long Prelude floating LNG project had been moored to the seabed off the Kimberley for 12 months and was yet to produce.
Six months later, Prelude has produced condensate. It is still to churn out LNG but when Mr Jager,right, talks about the project there is one point he makes above all else: “We’re not driven by milestones, we’re not driven by schedule, we’re driven … to make sure that it’s safe to start up.”read more
RETIRED SHELL CHIEF SAFETY OFFICER: Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) has gained its reputation as an organisation with no morality that if it can get away with it will lie repeatedly even when trapped by its own evidence, by its own falsehoods. It seems based on its track record RDS has no justification to support its protestations about public authorities using whatever legitimate means they can to dig out from the corruption cesspit the truth.
By Bill Campbell [from 1996 to retirement Upstream Senior Maintenance Engineer, Global Consultant on this and Techical and Finance audits before retirement as SIEP Audit Manager]
Re the article on the Moerdijk explosion and the Dutch prosecutors getting to the truth don’t you think it’s a bit rich that RDS protests? Royal Dutch Shell (RDS) has gained its reputation as an organisation with no morality that if it can get away with it will lie repeatedly even when trapped by its own evidence, by its own falsehoods.read more
singapore love: Rumor on the street is the Shell Vito project is over a year behind schedule, AND Shell plans to double down and award Whale to the same contractors in the coming weeks.
Must be some serious love going on between the Singaporeans and Shell decision makers....
Bonus Group: To uscitizen,
BRAZIL:
'PS - Shell is investing 2 billion a year into Brazil and already paying off'. Assuming $2Bn (you did not quote currency), that would just about cover Shell's share of the costs of replicants, operating expenses and of course managers' BONUSES!
$2Bn would represent approximately 10% of Shell's income in 2018.
https://reports.shell.com/annual-report/2018/consolidated-financial-statements/statement-of-cash-flows.php
FPSO unit cost: our initial case ($91bn total capex) assumed a cost of $2.5 billion for each of 13 FPSO units. However, our research shows a wide range of possibilities for this cost depending on the vessel configuration; plus the fact that Brazilian shipyards should get better at building them so the cost could reduce over time. Also the project might choose to lease rather than buy the FPSOs outright, which could improve economics for the consortium depending on the lease terms.
http://openoil.net/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/OO_br_Libra_narrative_1.0_161104.pdf
Bonus Group: To uscitizen,
BG GROUP ASSETS SOLD BY SHELL SUBSEQUENT TO TAKEOVER:
Petrobras and Total announced that they have finalized a decisive milestone in the realization of their Strategic Alliance, signed in March 2017, with the completion of the following transactions: Transfer from Petrobras to Total of 22.5% of the rights of the Iara area, which comprises the Sururu, Berbigão and Oeste de Atapu fields in Block BM-S-11A in the Santos Basin pre-salt, operated by Petrobras (42.5%) alongside Shell (25%) and Petrogal (10%). The consideration for the above transactions amounts to US$1.95 billion, including closing adjustments. This amount does not include US$ 400 million that can be triggered by Petrobras to carry a part of its investment share in the Iara development fields and contingent payments.
http://www.petrobras.com.br/en/news/petrobras-and-total-complete-the-transfer-of-rights-in-the-lapa-and-iara-concessions-as-part-of-their-strategic-alliance.htm
Royal Dutch Shell is nearing the sale of a large part of its North Sea oil and gas assets to private equity-backed Chrysaor for $3 billion, banking sources said, marking a milestone in its drive to reduce debt after buying BG Group.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-shell-m-a-northsea/shell-set-to-sell-3-billion-north-sea-assets-to-chrysaor-idUSKBN15B14M
Including this week’s US$750 million sale of an offshore shallow water gas field in Thailand.
https://www.jwnenergy.com/article/2018/1/shell-has-sold-us27-billion-assets-acquiring-bg-group-charts/
The deal covers Shell’s interests in the fields Buzzard, Beryl, Bressay, Elgin-Franklin, J-Block, the Greater Armada cluster, Everest, Lomond and Erskine, and a 10% stake in Schiehallion. Shell also announced on Tuesday that it had sold its stake in a Thai gas field for $900m to a subsidiary of the Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Exploration Company.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/jan/31/shell-sells-north-sea-oil-gas-fields-chrysaor-linda-cook
TOTAL: $5.7Bn = 21% of $27Bn
uscitizen: Bonus group, Contradict myself - lol. Poor guy - like I said do your own research - tell us what you find, you will look like the irrational uneducated poster you are. PS - Shell is investing 2 billion a year into Brazil and already paying off. Do you ever look anything up?
Bonus Group: To US Citizen. Thank you for your post of September 9th 2019 20:12. Congratulations on also being an avid reader of this blog. You are correct in my post of June 26th 2019 23:05 I did say that '..Shell had a ‘fire sale’ of a plethora of BG ‘dross’ assets in order to raise $30Bn to disguise the amount by which they had overpaid for BG Group.' More correctly, Shell had a ‘fire sale’ including a plethora of BG ‘dross’ assets in order to raise $30Bn to disguise the amount by which they had overpaid for BG Group. This does not detract from the fact that Shell did have a 'fire sale' in order to raise $30Bn. By my estimation Shell over paid for BG Group by about 30%. The Christmas boxes were very large, but the presents were very small. You contradict yourself when you say that you will not do my homework for me, but then tell me that the split of the $30Bn assets sold was 80:20 Shell:BG. Is that correct? If so, thank you that just goes to show how worthless those BG assets were, but then that is what you can expect from a Cappuccino and Belgian chocolate lifestyle company. Any comments about what the Brazil Asset are up to these days?
uscitizen: To Bonus Group - the large percentage of assets sold by Shell were non BG assets. I will not do your homework for you, but the split is 80/20. A great example of why you do not take what this sites protagonists post as good information. But go ahead, say I am wrong and also posting garbage, do your research and tell me the number of BG asset sales vs the 30 billion Shell raised thru asset sales.
John Donovan: MESSAGE FROM JOHN FOR THE ATTENTION OF BOGUS GROUP. I have received the information you kindly sent and have replied by encrypted email.
Bill Campbell Prelude Comment: I might write in more detail but I find it rather ironic that it was this website that was telling the world 6 or so years ago that this installation did not have risk levels as low as claimed and one of the principal risk drivers was the compact nature of a hazardous substances plant with not enough space to swing a cat in. Unless you are not aware I wrote to Shell Australia at the time giving them data from 8 existing or planned onshore LNG plants which varied from 80 to 100 hectares or on average 20 to 22 times the footprint of Prelude, could they tell me as a stakeholder with shares in the Company how they arrived at their ridiculously low number but can guess I assume that a reasonable explanatory reply was not forthcoming, as sure as eggs are eggs if this plant is currently having problems or if it has problems or major accident events in future it will be due to the force fitting a complex plant, with risk levels much above which they have published, on a postage stamp of a footprint.
God willing they will never live to regret their fraudulent overly optimistic claims, risk is based on reality not wishful thinking.
Bill
Thanks. Problem is that it's behind a paywall and despite it being a great publication for the oil industry, none of us retired folk wants to invest in a subscription.
FURTHER REPLY FROM JOHN
I have received the further Prelude information you have kindly provided and have replied by encripted email.
Bonus Group: Further to Bogus Group's post yesterday. I am absolutely appalled that a Senior Executive of Royal Dutch Shell plc should spout so much nonsense concerning the Prelude installation. The statement is redolent of Malcolm Brinded and his 'Touch F*ck All' policy, which led to the deaths of Keith Moncrieff and Sean McCue on Brent Bravo on 11th September 2003. What is boring is the continuous misleading spin and blather from the top of this company and their lackadaisical approach to safety. 'Chronic Unease' is a well known expression in the Oil and Gas Industry, and that state of mind is far from boring or routine. In fact nothing is either boring or routine in Oil and Gas operations. Rob Jager moved last year to the post of VP Prelude after spending thirteen years as Country Chair and VP for Shell New Zealand/Shell Taranaki, after Shell announced the sale of its New Zealand interests in March 2018. Jager clearly previously has spent too much time being 'laid back' in the fantasy land of Lord of the Rings, marvelling at New Zealand's scenery and wondering who will be entertaining him for his next luxury seafood dinner accompanied by a glass of chilled expensive New Zealand Sauvignon Blanc.
Bogus Group: PLEASE SEE REPLY FROM JOHN WHICH FOLLOWS THE COMMENT FROM BOGUS GROUP
More on Prelude article in Upstream.
I’m stunned by what can only be described as idiotic statements. Nothing like the utopia of self-aggrandisement without verification. What is Jagers’ level of technical and operational capabilities? I recall similar rhetoric from BG Group charlatans, with the “best in class” mentality and use of the most overstated expression ever to be used outside the education sector, all aimed at pleasing their taskmasters.
Ramp-up of Prelude and what Jager hopes will be decades of “uneventful” and “boring” operation.
“This will be a state where little or nothing happens. We have few if any alarms, no surprises and where things are running like clock work and we are effectively in autopilot,” he said.
“We will know when we have succeeded in this ambition because Prelude will be recognised as the most boring asset in Shell global portfolio our people will refer to it as the safest and most desirable place to work, and when the rest of the industry is knocking on our door to find out how we have achieved such a best in class outcome, especially for a facility as complex and unique as Prelude.”
REPLY FROM JOHN
Hello, I would be grateful if you could send me a copy of the article via [email protected] using an anonymous email address. I would pass it on to retired Shell EP experts for their assessment.
This is not a Shell website. Click on Disclaimer link at top of page for more information.
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Second LNG cargo from Prelude
Singapore — 
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