LNG Industry - January 2020

significant vessel impacts, a number of preventative

measures may be applied in order to mitigate such collisions.

In heavy traffic, vessels must proceed at low speed and using

extra caution, or an exclusion area may be created around

the GBS. As far as the manoeuvrability of the LNG carriers is

concerned, the approach and berthing of the vessels are

handled by experienced crew in order to guarantee the

safety of the operation.

Other advantages

Among the advantages of a GBS, it is notable that this

system can be quickly deployed to develop LNG as a fuel

source, or switch to green energies. The fact that the design

of the station is based on standard components offers

schedule flexibility and enables the storage tank to be

easily installed. As the construction activities are located in

a different place than the operational installation site, the

existing terminal or harbour activities are not impacted by

its implementation.

A GBS provides some technical advantages. For

example, by adding mooring dolphins, loading and

unloading of liquefied gas can be carried-out directly from

a GBS. The caisson can also be deballasted and relocated if

required.

Another significant advantage is that a GBS can provide

access to energy for countries and islands which are not

connected to the grid and which have limited land

availability, while minimising visual impact, particularly in

populated areas or areas with high levels of tourism.

Current applications and

challenges

Nowadays, only one of this kind of LNG storage has been

built in the world and is still in operation. Located in the

northern Adriatic, 1700 nautical miles from Italy, operations

at the Adriatic LNG terminal began in 2009.

However, this Adriatic GBS project will soon no longer be

a standalone example of GBS technology. Indeed, in

September 2019, GTT announced the design and

construction of three GBS terminals intended for the

Arctic LNG 2 project, operated by Russia’s NOVATEK. These

GBS terminals will consist of concrete caissons with

membrane containment tanks using GTT’s GST technology.

The units will be built in a dry dock at the NOVATEK

Murmansk LNG Construction Center, before being towed to

their final location in the Gydan Peninsular in the

Russian Arctic, where they will be installed.

The number of these structures may increase in the

coming years. The potential of GBS technology is great, since

this solution is suitable for various liquefied gas

applications, for all types of vessels, and can be adapted to

different storage capacities. In addition to being a flexible

and adaptable solution, this modular concept offers great

advantages in terms of simplicity, safety and cost.

For the future, the main challenge is that the GBS solution

is quite site-specific. There are also currently no standards

available. Geotechnical investigations must be carried out to

ensure that the soil bearing capacity is appropriate for the

vertical load applied by the GBS structure.

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