Petronas Begins Building Third FLNG Vessel with Custom Fender Systems in Sabah

Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

Malaysia’s national energy company Petronas has started construction of its third floating liquefied natural gas (FLNG) vessel, set for deployment at a nearshore site in Sabah, East Malaysia. Designed to produce up to two million tonnes of LNG annually, the unit is planned to enter commercial operations in the second half of 2027.

The project involves Samsung Heavy Industries and JGC as lead contractors, with China Communications Construction Company providing marine support. To prepare the berth, ShibataFenderTeam supplied four of its largest Cell Fender Systems (CSS3000, G3.1), made from the hardest available rubber grade.

Each system features a 4000×4500 millimetre steel panel, equipped with four tension chains, two weight chains, and two uplift chains — a non-standard setup designed to meet the scale and safety demands of the installation. Alongside the fenders, the package included 24 sets of 300-tonne Tee Bollards.

The new berth was engineered with the latest PIANC2024 Guidelines in mind. These guidelines place strong emphasis on cyclic loading — essentially how fenders behave under repeated pressure during mooring. Avoiding overloading was a central consideration, given the vessel’s size and the complex forces it will face when docked.

According to the engineers, the fender systems are built for long service life with little maintenance, capable of handling worst-case mooring scenarios. “The scope was about more than just fitting fenders,” one marine engineer explained. “It was about ensuring these systems could take the punishment of extreme winds, waves, and currents without fatigue or creep.”

The FLNG unit will be permanently stationed at the Sipitang Oil and Gas Industrial Park (SOGIP) berth. Functioning as a self-contained facility, it will produce, treat, liquefy, store, and transfer LNG. The liquefaction process cools natural gas into liquid, shrinking its volume by about 600 times. From there, it will be stored in the hull before being offloaded onto carriers bound for global markets — reinforcing Malaysia’s role as a significant LNG exporter.

But if you picture a floating plant tied up like a small vessel, think again. With its large draft and exposed hull, the FLNG will face the full spectrum of environmental pressures, from monsoon winds to unpredictable currents. Every mooring load has been calculated using Dynamic Mooring Analysis (DMA), ensuring that the berth’s systems can withstand the constant strain.

And that’s where the custom-built CSS3000 fenders come in — absorbing those stresses without failing under repeated use. It’s a reminder that in offshore energy, the unseen details at the berth can be just as critical as the big steel structures offshore.