With a maritime history dating back to 1946 and as an early entrant into the Liquid Natural Gas (LNG) business over 50 years ago, Golar is one of the world’s most innovative and experienced independent owners and operators of floating LNG infrastructure.
We developed the world’s first Floating LNG liquefaction terminal (FLNG), and the world’s first Floating Storage and Regasification Unit (FSRU) projects based on the conversion of existing LNG carriers. Today our focus is on the design, conversion, ownership, and operation of FLNG’s that turn natural gas into LNG. FLNG brings substantially lower unit cost liquefaction, shorter lead-times and a significantly lower execution risk profile when compared to conventional land-based liquefaction plants. These advantages are most pronounced for commercialisation of gas resources in remote locations or developing economies with limited established industrial capability and infrastructure. Alongside the advantages of cost, lead-time and risk reduction, this strategy facilitates the commercialisation of accumulations of gas or associated gas much smaller than those needed to justify the capital costs of land-based solutions. These attributes render our FLNG technology attractive to a wider range of resource holders. By allowing smaller resource holders, developers and customers to occupy a legitimate space alongside the largest resource holders, major and super-major IOC’s, Golar FLNGs help create new supply sources that bring new employment, investment and tax revenues to the host country, all of which can be used to improve living standards, often where this is needed most.
We at Golar are particularly proud of our significant contribution to the world’s circular economy. Rather than scrapping and rebuilding, Golar prefers wherever possible to refurbish and repurpose existing high quality soon to retire LNG carriers. To date Golar has repurposed 7 LNG carriers into FSRUs and FLNGs, adding decades to their useful lives. For our two FLNG conversions to date, greenhouse gas emissions were around 33% less than a comparable design/spec FLNG newbuild. This is the collective equivalent of removing 25,000 cars from our roads for a year. Use of energy produced using waste heat generated by our engines means that when operating, our innovative FLNG technology also has a competitively low carbon intensity. After a previously stranded gas field is produced by one of our FLNGs, we can relocate to a new one, leaving little to no trace of our existence and none of the impact on sensitive coastal habitats and wetlands associated with many land-based LNG export projects that require acres of space and often result in large abandoned unsightly industrial complexes at the end of their useful life. Our biggest contribution to the energy transition however is to harness the wasted energy in flare gas by converting it into LNG – which can then replace dirtier fuels like coal and oil and back up a grid increasingly dependent on intermittent renewables. This technology exists today, is proven, solves a long-standing industry problem and is one of the few ways we can immediately reduce global CO2 emissions.
To find out more about Golar, visit golarlng.com where you will also find our latest ESG report.
To find out more about our small-scale flare to LNG innovation being developed by wholly owned subsidiary, Macaw Energies, visit macawenergies.com
