Shell/Jeff Topping
Shell
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Shell
Shell
Shell
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Shell/Interfax
Shell/Petronas/Interfax
Big little tower: Shell announced its most recent milestone in August, when the world's largest-ever turret (named after the Italian word for little tower) set sail from Dubai to the Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard in Korea. The 100-metre-high turret – designed in Morocco – will sit on the seabed, with giant chains attached to the Prelude vessel.
Blowing in the wind: Mooring the Prelude vessel to the turret allows it to move slowly with the wind and currents, and ensures it can withstand even the most severe of the cyclones that sweep through Australia's northwest coast between November and April every year.
A hull of a lot: Workers from Shell, Technip and Samsung Heavy Industries floated the vessel's 488-metre-long hull out of the Korean dry dock in October 2013.
What lies beneath: A photo of the substructure that went into the hull, taken in May 2013. It was built by connecting large steel sections – known as megablocks.
First cut is the deepest: The partners cut the first steel for the Prelude vessel in October 2012. The sheet of steel weighed 7.6 tons and was 4.3 metres wide, 13.8 metres long and 16.5 millimetres thick.
It's a celebration: Executives and workers from Shell, Technip and Samsung Heavy Industries celebrated making the first cut.
The finished product: Here's an artist's impression of what the vessel will look like once it is moored in place.
Prelude by numbers: Finding it hard to visualise all of these dimensions? Take a look at how Shell compares to other big structures around the world.
Let's compare: While it will be the biggest so far, Prelude is no longer expected to be the world's first floating plant. Malaysia's Petronas expects to bring its smaller PFLNG 1 online off the coast of Sarawak next year. That will be followed by the 1.5 mtpa PFLNG 2 vessel offshore Sabah in 2018, for which it reached FID in February.
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