Development of Technologies of Floating LNG Bunkering Terminal and Assessment of Safety and Performance

Abstract

Abstract The concept of Floating LNG Bunkering Terminal (FLBT) has been developed for offshore bunkering services in Korea. FLBT which has a 220k m3 storage capacity is under developing, which can receive LNG from LNG carriers or transfer LNG to LNG bunkering shuttles at sea. FLBT is consisted of the hull, the mooring system and equipments including the berthing system, the ship-to-ship transfer system. As the safe LNG transfer operation is the most essential point for this facility, a series of experiments was performed in order to verify the operational safety of LNG loading and unloading operations at ocean environment. The preliminary design includes FLBT hull design, operational site, requirements, side-by-side and turret mooring system, and LNG transfer process. Experiments of ship-to-ship mooring configurations were performed in the ocean engineering basin of Korea Research Institute of Ships and Ocean engineering(KRISO). Experimental results were reviewed with aspect to motion responses of floaters, tensions at the ship-to-ship mooring system, and relative motions between LNG loading arms and corresponding manifolds. In the experiments, the loads on the ship-to-ship mooring system did not exceed their maximum breaking loads, while motion responses of bunkering shuttles were relatively large. The experimental results will be also analyzed in terms of the reliability of ship-to-ship mooring lines and the applicability of a conventional rigid LNG loading arm. Finally, the design will be updated continuously with the conceptual development of FLBT and the feedback from the stability check.