Italian oil and gas company Eni has introduced the first hydrocarbons from the Coral South field located offshore Mozambique to the Coral-Sul FLNG vessel.

Eni, as Upstream Delegated Operator of Area 4 on behalf of its partners – ExxonMobil, CNPC, GALP, KOGAS and ENH – revealed on Saturday that the Coral South Project had achieved the introduction of hydrocarbons to the Coral-Sul Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) plant from the Coral South reservoir.

Following the introduction of gas in the plant, Coral-Sul FLNG will now be ready to achieve its first LNG cargo in the second half of 2022, adding Mozambique to the LNG-producing countries.

The Coral South project achieved Final Investment Decision in 2017; FLNG fabrication and construction activities started in September 2018 when the first steel for the hull was cut, and were completed in 38 months as planned with the sailaway from South Korea to Mozambique in November 2021. The vessel arrived there in early January 2022.

Mooring and connection to six underwater production wells were finalised in March and May 2022, respectively, and the introduction of hydrocarbons comes after the conclusion of offshore commissioning activities.

Eni noted that the Coral-Sul FLNG has been implemented with an energy optimization approach, integrated into the design via a systematic analysis of energy efficiency improvements. Among others, these include zero flaring during normal operations, use of thermal efficient aero-derivative gas turbines for refrigerant compressors and generation, use of Dry Low NOx technology to reduce NOx emission and waste heat recovery systems for the process.

The Coral-Sul FLNG is 432 meters long and 66 meters wide, weighs around 220,000 tons and has the capacity to accommodate up to 350 people in its eight-story living quarter module. The facility is located at a water depth of around 2,000 meters and is kept in position by means of 20 mooring lines that totally weigh 9,000 tons.

Coral-Sul FLNG has a gas liquefaction capacity of 3.4 million tons per year (MTPA) and will put in production 450 billion cubic meters of gas from the giant Coral reservoir, located in the offshore Rovuma Basin. According to Eni, Coral-Sul FLNG is the first floating LNG facility ever deployed in the deep waters of the African continent.