Patent ID: 6997643

Claim:
An offshore offloading system for offloading liquid LNG from a tanker that lies in a shallow sea, and passing the LNG through a regas unit to create warmed gaseous hydrocarbons and passing the warmed hydrocarbons through a gas conduit arrangement to an onshore station comprising: a floating structure that is coupled to said tanker to receive said liquid LNG therefrom; a mooring tower lying in said sea, said tower having a lower end mounted at a fixed position on the sea floor and having an upper end extending above the sea surface; a yoke having a proximal end that is rotatable about a primarily vertical axis on the tower upper end, and having a distal end coupled to said floating structure; said regas unit lies on said floating structure, and said tower is devoid of regas equipment; a gas storage cavern; said gas conduit arrangement includes a fluid swivel mounted on said tower, a first conduit part that extends from said floating structure to a rotatable part of said fluid swivel, a second conduit part that extends from said fluid swivel down to said cavern, and a third conduit part that extends from said cavern to said onshore station, whereby to store varying amounts of gaseous hydrocarbons in the cavern and flow them more evenly to the onshore station.