Shell considered shutting its flagship Prelude liquefied natural gas facility off Australia for a year to fix issues that have plagued its operations, but instead opted for shorter maintenance period to allow it to capture strong gas demand, three industry sources said.
Prelude, whose deck is longer than four soccer fields, was the world’s first floating LNG facility to use novel technology and cost over $12 billion, according to estimates.
The facility, some 475 km (300 miles) off the west coast of Australia, has suffered a string of outages since it started production in June 2019, including a fire that led to a full power loss in December 2021.
