A contract worth more than A$100 million (å£36 million, US$ 57 million) for subsea installation activities has been awarded to a joint venture between two Perth-based companies, Technip-Coflexip Oceania Pty Ltd and Subsea 7 Australia Pty Ltd. A further contract worth more than A$40 million (å£14.5 million, US $23 million) for rock dumping was awarded to Van Oord ACZ Offshore BV of the Netherlands.
The Technip-Coflexip/Subsea 7 joint venture will provide specialist subsea installation services, including a diving support vessel and heavy-lift vessel. The scope of work includes:
installation of two large subsea valve skids manufactured in Kwinana;
installation over the deepwater section of the trunkline of 900 32-tonne precast concrete gravity anchors manufactured near Karratha; and
removal of 40-in/30-in ball valves currently at the base of the North Rankin A gas production platform, and installation of a skid-based 40-in subsea isolation check valve.
Installation engineering will be done in Perth, and Australian crews will be used for the offshore campaign. The peak workforce will be about 200 people. Work on the contract is expected to start in August, 2003, and be completed by June, 2004.
The rock-dumping contract involves the placement of about 450,000cum of locally-quarried rock on the trunkline to stabilize it on the seabed. The rock will be placed over the trunkline for the first 30km from shore, as well as around the concrete gravity anchors in the deepwater section. Australian-based crews will be used on board the specialist vessels, SSDV Jan Steen and FFPV Rocky Giant, as well as onshore to load the rock on board the vessels. Work on this contract will start in July, 2003, and be completed in January, 2004.
The second trunkline project, paralleling the existing 40-in, 135-km long pipeline, is an integral part of current expansion of the Venture’s gas-production and -liquefaction facilities, which includes the construction of a fourth LNG processing train and associated infrastructure. Construction work for the new 42-in diameter pipeline on the North Rankin A, platform, located 130km offshore from Dampier in Western Australia, will be followed by pipelaying, and final hook-up of the second trunkline into the offshore operating system is scheduled for early 2004.
The second trunkline will link the Venture’s offshore gas production and onshore gas processing facilities on the Burrup Peninsula in Western Australia. The 42-in diameter line has been designed to provide extra capacity to meet increased demand from existing and new LNG customers, as well as for prospective gas-related projects on the Burrup Peninsula. Completion of the project is expected in mid-2004.
The six equal participants in the North West Shelf Venture are Woodside Energy Ltd (operator), BHP Billiton Petroleum (North West Shelf) Pty Ltd, BP Developments Australia Pty Ltd, ChevronTexaco Australia Pty Ltd, Japan Australia LNG (MIMI) Pty Ltd, and Shell Development (Australia) Pty Ltd.