(60f) Snohvit LNG – Leading LNG Business into a Promising Region

The frontier of the LNG World will be pushed further north as Linde - the main engineering contractor together with their client Statoil - are building a "first of its kind" LNG plant in Norway's Finnmark area. This paper outlines how the specific requirements of a remote and arctic construction site have been accounted for in the engineering. Therefore the key features of the Snohvit LNG plant are briefly discussed and the main components of the Mixed Fluid Cascade© (MFC) process are presented. As Snohvit LNG is the first baseload LNG plant featuring an all electric drive approach using on site power generation by five aero-derivative gas turbines, special emphasis is placed on the refrigeration cycle compressors with their drivers and the gas turbine modules. The complex electrical system and its interaction with rotating equipment was analysed in detailed engineering studies and, to a certain extent, already verified in a full scale string test program. Full verification will be achieved with tests scheduled for the start up phase of the plant. Another key feature of Snohvit LNG is the Process Barge concept. The core process facilities were installed on a floatable barge during construction phase in Spain and then transported as a single 35000 ton module to its final destination within the arctic circle. The modularized concept allowed for maximum possible prefabrication coupled with the benefit derived from working in parallel at multiple construction yards. Bringing all these pieces together was a specific challenge for this project execution approach.