Van Oord is a family-owned company with approximately 4,600 employees and offices in 30 countries. The Australian main office of Van Oord is located in Brisbane and provides dredging and marine construction services to customers throughout Australia. By having also established an office in Perth, Mr Van der Wal explains that Van Oord is eager to better service the Australian offshore industry.

“In the near future we see a lot of good prospects in Western Australia and being in Perth is important for that. If you want to understand your client and if you want to be involved in projects at an early stage, then of course it is very important that you are close and in the same timezone,” Mr Van der Wal says.

Over the last 15 years, Van Oord Offshore has completed approximately 25 projects in Australia, building up good relations with clients and unions. Previous Australian offshore projects include rock installation for Woodside Petroleum and the dredging, shore approach, pipe pull and back filling for ConocoPhillips’ Bayu-Undan project, located offshore Darwin.

“We have a corporate culture that really fits in with the Australian way. In Australia we work closely together with the dredging division, which has an extensive track record on conventional dredging projects. Basically we have setup an additional office in Perth because we want to show commitment to our clients in the oil and gas industry.

“When you have frequent meetings and you speak to your client a lot, then you understand your client better and have a better competitive edge,” says Mr Van der Wal.

Approaching Australia’s shores

Van Oord completes shore approaches for offshore oil and gas pipeline projects. The company provides dredging, pipe pulling and rock installation services.

Mr Van der Wal explains the process, “The main contractors laying pipelines often have very large vessels that cannot approach the shore more than 2–3 km away. In general, the last 2–3 km of a pipeline is required to be buried. Van Oord will dredge the trench, and pull the pipeline from the shore into the trench where the main contractor is not able to lay the pipe. After that we back fill the pipe, either with the dredger or one of our rock installation vessels.”

Van Oord is able to contract large contracts, for which complete engineering, procurement, installation and commissioning (EPIC) of single point mooring (SPM) and gravity-based structure projects is performed.

“Every contractor is looking for a part of the market where it can excel,” says Mr Van der Wal, stating that the company is currently completing the engineering for an EPIC SPM project in Fujairah.

“The project comprises of three SPM moorings and three pipelines. Van Oord is responsible for the engineering, the procurement of the buoys and pipeline and dredging the trenches. With our own large linear winches installed on one of our construction vessels, we pull the pipelines from a string yard. Finally we will install the SPM buoy and commission the SPM system.”

Mr Van der Wal says that these projects require versatility, “it’s a total package that we can offer clients because of our expertise and experience.”

Recent developments

Recently, Van Oord completed the shore approach for ENI’s Blacktip Gas Field Development in Northern Territory, which involved dredging the trench, pulling of the pipeline and backfilling the trench.

“We won the contract for Blacktip because we offered a smart solution, which meant a cost saving to the client,” says Mr Van der Wal.

He says that the project was located in waters with swell and a large tidal range. This combined with the relative remoteness of the area provided a challenge. “In the end the project was successful because we prepared the job very well and we used land transport where applicable and barge transport to be more flexible.”

The company also completed the shore approach for the Pluto Gas Field owned by Woodside. At the time of writing, the company was executing the shore pull with one of its own 350 tonne winches.

Mr Van der Wal says “The real challenge on these projects is to plan the project well. We are dependent on main contractors and their planning, and it is important to maintain close communication with the client.”

Future prospects

Van Oord is currently tendering for rock installation on Chevron’s Gorgon LNG Development.

The pipeline needs to be stabilised to withstand typhoons and as such, the contract involves considerable quantities of rock.

On a yearly basis Van Oord places approximately 2 MMt of rock with flexible fall pipe vessels (FFPVs). Mr Van der Wal says “After Van Oord’s new built 27,000 tonne FFPV Stornes has entered the market, we will be able to expand our market share even further.”

The company has also been noting with interest Inpex’s development of the Ichthys Gas Field, located offshore 850 km from Darwin.

“As we did the Bayu-Undan project also coming from offshore to Darwin, we have the experience and know the soil and environmental conditions.

“Through that previous knowledge there are things that we can share with the client, such as risks that might not have been foreseen, and of course we can help them quite well with budgetary information as we have already done a similar project.”