POSCO solely supplies 150,000 tons of steel plates used in the gas plant development project led by the multinational petrochemical giant Royal Dutch Shell (‘Shell’ hereafter) in Prelude, located in the northwestern Australia, during 14 months starting from August 2012.
This was the second case where all thick plates of a single project were supplied altogether, and POSCO is the only global steel company to have done so. The first being was for FPSO unit of the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering (DSME) where 90,000 tons of thick plates were supplied.
The 150,000 tons of thick plates supplied was approximately 58% of the entire 260,000 tons of steel materials required in Shell’s LNG development project structure, and is equivalent to an amount that can build 7 buildings at the POSCO Center scale which used 20,000 tons of thick plates.
The ‘Shell’s FLNG Project’ to which the company successfully supplied all thick plate materials is a 3 billion USD scale order won by Samsung Heavy Industries from Shell in 2010 for the world’s first LNG drilling, production, and storage facility (FLNG: Floating Liquefied Natural Gas).
It is a mega-scale offshore plant that has a length of 468 m, a width of 74 m, and a height of 100 ml, producing 3.5 million tons of LNG annually, with the capacity to store 450,000㎥ of LNG which is equivalent to three days of all LNG consumption in Korea.
▲ Image of the world’s first LNG drilling and FLNG facilities led by Shell
POSCO was able to supply all thick plates to the massive project as it was recognized for excellent materials, timely supply, and responsiveness to urgent requests.
POSCO satisfies strict safety and quality standards applied to energy steel materials used in offshore and deep sea plants such as the FLNG, as they must be able to be processed for application to various parts, have corrosion resistance against water, and have high toughness and solidity of steel materials, as they must firmly connect each part of the facilities and equipment.
To supply all products within the appointed date of delivery, the company also prepared all necessary thick plate production lineups for the project and minimized defect rates.
In addition, the ability to efficiently respond to urgent steel material orders due to inevitable frequent changes in design played a factor in being able to supply all the materials.
This project is particularly being seen as an exemplary case where joint correspondence with the client company led to successful execution.
POSCO has successfully carried out steel material development for LNG partitions and low temperatures, as well as applicability tests and the WPQT (welding procedure qualification test) for shipyard drydock equipment through joint technology cooperation with Samsung Heavy Industries.
POSCO prepared a project task force where all related departments of quality control, manufacturing, production, and transportation logistics participated so that there was no delay or mishaps in supply through production status monitoring as well as quality and supply management.
The company will continue to proactively provide support at early project stages so that client companies can receive large-scale overseas orders, and plans to provide a firm system to be able to supply excellent quality steel materials at the right time when needed.
Furthermore, considering energy steel materials as a future match for the steel industry, the company expects to see results in its efforts of strengthening R&D and investment, through marketing in the field, and to also strengthen its position in the energy steel material market.
The global energy steel material market has been supplied by select steel companies of Europe and Japan with high technology levels and excellent supply records, but POSCO has rapidly increased market share by successfully completing major global projects based on its technology.
Meanwhile, the company has completed development of 23 types of steel, with an additional 60 types of energy steel material developments planned for completion.
Further, POSCO family companies POSCO E&C, Daewoo International, and Sungjin Geotec, by supplying steel materials concurrently with energy plant orders, has the goal of reaching a market share of more than 10% in the global energy steel material market by 2020.