Offloading Operability of Near-Shore FLNG With Side-by-Side Moored LNG Carrier in Shallow Water Depth

Abstract

Abstract Recently, the FLNG projects have been developed for the LNG production near shore field with shallow water depth. In this field, FLNG is permanently moored by jetty system or special structures such as Yoke mooring for the liquefaction of feed gas by pipeline in land side. Like FLNGs which operated in deep water, ship-to-ship (STS) offloading operation is considered in near shore FLNG for the transfer of LNG cargo to shuttle LNG carrier through marine loading arm (MLA) with side-by-side (SBS) mooring arrangement. However, unlike FLNGs which operated in deep water depth, near shore FLNG has relatively short length due to the use of electric and accommodation from the land side. Also, the environmental conditions are quite differing in near shore as well as finite water depth. This meaning that the need of the special consideration of near shore FLNG for side-by-side (SBS) mooring arrangement. In this paper, a numerical motion analysis for the side-by-side moored FLNG and LNG carrier in near shore field is carried out in frequency-domain and time-domain. In order to assess the offloading operability of near shore FLNG during operation, dynamic loads acting on the mooring lines and fenders as well as relative motion are calculated for several SBS mooring arrangements. Throughout the study, it is found that the important of numerical accuracy of hydrodynamic analysis in shallow water depth and environmental conditions such as wind, wave and current. Also, the offloading operability is affected by the side-by-side mooring arrangement.