Innovation

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Golar Partners
Golar LNG

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We embrace fresh thinking and our lean organisational structure enables us to develop new ideas quickly.

Our two most significant innovations have been:

The world’s first FSRU conversion, the Golar Spirit – which went into operation in 2008
The world’s first FLNG conversion, the Golar Hilli – which commenced operations in 2018

In both cases we converted an existing ship on a speculative basis. Conversion of an existing asset has enabled Golar to offer a quick-delivering and cheap solution to an industry problem, which might be:

A need to rapidly open up new markets for excess LNG or to meet urgent requirements for new gas fired power
A need to enable owners of stranded gas reserves to monetise their asset

Our willingness to initiate the speculative conversion of a ship into an FSRU or FLNG demonstrated our belief in the soundness of our offering. This in turn gave our first customers the confidence to transact with us.

To date, none of our competitors has successfully emulated Golar's execution model. Although the approach with FLNG is similar to an FSRU conversion, the cost and scale of FLNG represent a significant step up. We therefore believe that it will be some time before we face serious competition in the FLNG business.

Golar’s FLNG business model

The rate of offshore natural gas discoveries has soared in recent years. There are estimated to be at least 300,000 billion cubic feet of natural gas lying in offshore fields – of which 40% is estimated to be stranded. “Stranded gas” means gas that would not be viable to extract using established methods in use before Golar’s FLNG solution existed. Locating the liquefaction process offshore on a vessel can dramatically reduce the cost per MMBTU of liquefying gas. Converting or building a vessel in a shipyard is quicker, cheaper and more environmentally friendly than building a facility in remote parts of the world that often lack the essential infrastructure necessary to get started. Unlike traditional land based solutions, Golar’s generic FLNG assets can then be redeployed to a new location once a field has been produced.

Golar’s FLNG business model

FSRU

The practice of converting LNG carriers into floating storage and regasification units (FSRUs) is now well accepted – thanks to innovation by Golar. We pioneered the FSRU conversion concept with the Golar Spirit, which went into operation in Brazil in 2008. We then successfully replicated the process four more times.

Although converted FSRUs remain highly cost competitive and are quicker to deliver, newbuild FSRUs are now a larger alternative to conversions for us at Golar and for new market participants

An FSRU is an LNG carrier with onboard regasification equipment. It receives liquefied LNG, stores it, and converts it into natural gas.

Floating Storage and Regasification Units

Case study: FSRU saltwater discharge turbine

As part of our ongoing efforts to continuously improve efficiency, Golar Engineers found an innovative solution to save energy aboard FSRUs by modifying the LNG-seawater heating system.

Most FSRUs utilise seawater to heat LNG. Pumps lift water 25 metres from sea level to the regasification module on the main deck. Lifting up to 18,000 m3/h of sea water per day requires approximately 1.4 MW of energy. On conventional FSRUs this energy is wasted as water drains by gravity back to sea level.

While it takes a lot of energy for water to work against gravity, working with it opens up energy innovation opportunities which Golar took advantage of. By inserting a generator-mounted turbine into the discharge pipe, Golar harvests wasted energy.

The turbine can produce up to 1.2 MW of clean energy (recovering 85% of the power used for the lifting process). This represents a 7% improvement on total system efficiency, corresponding to an approximate saving of 5 tons of fuel per day when regasifying at full load.

A pilot project has been successfully installed and is now in operation.