Shell to use North Sea LNG technology in Australia

By the OGJ Online Staff

HOUSTON, Oct. 15 -- A technology that Statoil ASA and Linde AG jointly developed for the Snøhvit liquefied natural gas project will also be used by a unit of Royal Dutch/Shell Group in an Australian project, said Statoil.

Statoil and Linde developed a heat exchange technology for use in the LNG plant on Melkøya, off the coast of Hammerfest, Norway. It includes spool-wound heat exchangers that are part of the process of cooling down the gas to -163° C, which is the temperature at which the gas converts to a liquid.

Parts of the technology will be used in Shell's North West Shelf project in Karratha, Australia.

"Shell will thus become the first user of the technology, since the plant in Australia will be operational before Snøhvit," said Statoil.

Linde is marketing the technology, which Statoil and Linde own equally.