Oxford Energy Podcast – Developments in the ‘LNG to Power’ market and the growing importance of floating facilities

The last 20 years has seen considerable growth in the number of floating offshore facilities; mainly for oil and gas production as well as LNG storage and regasification, and more recently for LNG liquefaction. Floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) for importing LNG, use standardised technology and have become popular since they can generally be deployed more quickly and at a lower cost than onshore facilities. They can be coupled with a Floating Power Plant (FPP) to provide cost effective LNG to Power solutions that can be quickly deployed. In this podcast David Ledesma discusses with Mike Wyllie five different types of ‘LNG to Power’ project structures and specifically the concept of a Floating Storage, Regasification and Power Generation Unit (FSRP) that combines and integrates the FSRU and FPP functions into a single vessel.  Although the combined FRSU + FPP solution is well proven, the FSRP allows efficiency gains through better heat integration, as well as a lower CAPEX and OPEX, bringing the opportunity for a lower levelized cost of electricity (LCOE).  But the lack of maturity will require a longer project schedule for the prototype units.  Will there be enough of an incentive in the lower LCOE to convince potential clients to accept the longer schedule?

By: OIES