Gary's baby is going for a swim!!

When Gary sent out some photos of his ‘baby’, his sister wrote back:

“Explain more about this- I would love to share with my classes in a month when school starts. This big rectangular cement-looking box does what, exactly? Did you like to play with erector sets when you were little?”

Gary’s explanation:

“Think of it as a big offshore propane tank.

Natural Gas is liquified (cooled to -160 deg C) to become LNG (liquefied Natural Gas) in Qatar and placed in LNG tankers. Tankers move up the Suez canal into the Mediterranean Sea and up to Venice (17 KM offshore Venice) The tankers berth along side the GBS ( gravity based structure - my baby) and the LNG is pumped into storage tanks that are inside the GBS (two tanks that each hold 125000 cubic meters of LNG).

The top of the concrete box has about 20,000 tons of processing equipment and pressurizes and warms up the LNG to become high pressure natural gas. The GBS is connected to the mainland by a pipeline which connects to the Natural Gas piping network in Italy.

I was responsible for the design of the concrete box, and the metal tanks inside the box that hold the LNG.

I did have an erector set, but I was more of a lego guy.”

Some Photos:

Here is his baby before the dry dock was filled with water (you can see how big it really is)

Close up

With the Rock of Gibralter in the background, and a better view of scale with cars in the photo (click on it for a bigger view)