His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, President of Dubai Civil Aviation and Chairman of Emirates Group, welcomed Khamis Juma Buamim Chairman, Drydocks World and Maritime World and heads and senior executives of the teams involved in the building of Shell’s Prelude FLNG project.

The delegation comprised of Mr. Jean Marc Aubry President Technip France, Mr. Jaap de Vries Director General of Royal Shell prelude project, Mr. David Nichols Group Commercial and Marketing Director for the SBM Offshore Group and Mr. Janjul Kim of Samsung Heavy Industries – Korea and other senior executives.

Khamis Buamim presented a summary profile on the project and technical cooperation between all stakeholders in this giant project of global significance and the project’s launch in Dubai during the steel cutting ceremony of the turret, which will be the biggest turret in the world, more than 90 meters in height and a diameter of more than 30 meters with a weight of 11,500 tons.

His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum, assured the support of Dubai Government to the very unique project of high importance to the marine heavy industry and to the development of the economy and international cooperation, and expressed his admiration of technological capability and the development of the project.

Jaap de Vries Director General of Royal Shell Prelude project expressed his happiness on the start of the project construction in record time, valuing the active role of His Highness Sheikh Ahmed and Drydocks World in reducing the setup time and the co-operative work of all teams and units and expressed admiration for evolving business systems. He explained that this project and the technology used is an important development for the LNG industry, because it reduces the cost of the project and the environmental impacts of the development of natural gas.

Jean-Marc Aubry, President of Technip France commended Drydocks World on its achievements and said “We have worked for two years in the design and the development of the project and we are proud that the first building block for this unique project is in Dubai. This project is global by all means if we let the incredible size of the budget allocated and the actual capacity and productivity side, it is sufficient that the number of countries and nationalities contribute and interested in this project makes it a unique set up hence the number of nationalities involved are over 70. We are proud to meet Your Highness and appreciate your patronage and your interest in this giant project“.

In May 2011, Dutch Royal Shell took the decision to proceed with its giant facility Prelude for the extraction of natural gas (LNG) (FLNG) to be the largest floating structure at all. The FLNG facility itself has a length of 488 meters and width of 74 m, and when fully loaded will weigh about 600,000 tons – the equivalent of six times the largest aircraft carriers in the world. The iron and steel used will reach 260,000 tons, equivalent to about five times more than they used to build the Sydney Harbor Bridge.

The facility has been designed to withstand severe weather conditions, waves and even Category 5 sea hurricane. It takes into account public safety for the FLNG facility up to a maximum and the degree of security, safety and environment is very sophisticated and the best in the industry of modern offshore oil and gas facilities.

His Highness Sheikh Ahmed bin Saeed Al Maktoum received a memorabilia piece – the first piece of steel to build the project.