Engineers positive about FLNG

The peak national body for engineers has revealed a strong desire among its members in Western Australia to be engaged in the industry's nascent floating liquefied natural gas developments.

Engineers Australia WA is releasing a report this morning about the challenges and opportunities FLNG will bring for the state's 30,000 engineers.

Incoming 2015 president Francis Norman told Business News Engineers Australia WA spent several months canvassing LNG operators, engineering companies, universities and research organisations.

"We looked at it from the perspective that FLNG projects are going to be here ... and we wanted to know what the industry was doing to get ready for it and what

the industry should be doing to be as ready as possible for it," Mr Norman said.

The report found WA's academic and industrial engineering workforce was already well equipped with related skills to make a transition to support all stages of FLNG developments in Australia.

It also mirrored findings of an inquiry by the state's economics and industry standing committee into the economic implications of FLNG. The inquiry indicated that, since the nation's first FLNG project – Shell's $12 billion Prelude operation – was to be in WA, the state had an opportunity to establish itself as a global centre of knowledge and excellence.

However, Mr Norman said the dynamics of the debate had shifted somewhat since that report.

"A lot of the talk at the time the standing committee were doing its (FLNG) inquiry seemed to imply that there was a commercial option between offshore and onshore. A lot of what we've heard from talking to people that really the option was between offshore or not at all," he said.

"You're never quite sure when new technology is arriving how it will be received and what people will think about it, but everybody we spoke to was

guardedly optimistic about our abilities to really make the best that we can of the opportunities that FLNG will give us."

The full report can be viewed at:

http://newsroom.engineersaustralia.org.au/news/media-release/engineering-peak-body-releases-floating-liquefied-natural-gas-flng-report