First floating LNG project for BASF's gas treatment technology

The latest FLNG project of the Malaysian oil and gas company PETRONAS (PFLNG DUA) has selected BASF’s OASE purple for its Acid Gas Removal Unit process. This is the first FLNG reference worldwide for BASF’s OASE Gas Treatment technology.

Together with PETRONAS and the Japanese engineering partner JGC Corporation, PFLNG DUA has been successfully started up in February 2021 and completed its Performance Test Run in May 2021. The floating LNG facility opens a new source of supply for cleaner energy as it is designed to extract natural gas from deepwater gas reservoirs in depths up to 1,500 meters.

OASE purple is an amine-based solution that is utilized for the removal of acid gases such as carbon dioxide (CO2) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S) from natural gas. The removal of acid gases is necessary to prepare the gas for the liquefaction and subsequent pipeline transportation. The highly efficient and environmentally friendly BASF-technology provides flexibility and low capital expenditure (CAPEX) for its customers. Additionally, the low energy demand of the process combined with the non-corrosive nature of the solvent keeps operating and maintenance costs (OPEX) low. The process also provides a high level of gas purity and product gas recovery while keeping solvent losses to a minimum.

Andreas Northemann, Head of BASF’s Gas Treatment business, says: “We are proud to now have our first FLNG reference in operation and running at 100 percent capacity, which is the fruit of many years of research. We applied our on-shore LNG expertise and conducted motion studies and Computational Fluid Dynamics (CFD) to ensure a high reliability, low maintenance design which meets our customer’s stringent off-shore specifications and challenges.”

With PFLNG DUA, PETRONAS owns and operates two floating LNG facilities, following the success of PFLNG SATU which has been in operation since 2017. Construction of PETRONAS’ latest – second – floating LNG facility started in 2015 and will be moored over the Rotan Gas Field at a water depth of 1,300 meters, located 140 kilometers offshore Kota Kinabalu, Sabah, Malaysia in the South China Sea with the capacity to produce 1.5 million tons of LNG annually.

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