Contracts have been awarded for the Barossa Offshore Project in Perth.
Barossa is an offshore gas and light condensate project that proposes to provide a new source of gas to the existing Darwin LNG (DLNG) facility, subject to suitable commercial arrangements being put in place.
The offshore development concept includes a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) facility, subsea production system, and gas export pipeline, located in Commonwealth waters 300km north of Darwin.
The existing DLNG infrastructure owners are assessing several options to backfill the facility from 2023 when the current offshore gas supply from Bayu-Undan is expected to be exhausted. FEED for the FPSO facility will be conducted as a design competition between two contractor groups.
Following an extensive bid process, separate FPSO FEED contracts have been awarded to MODEC and to a consortium between TechnipFMC and Samsung Heavy Industries. FEED for the subsea infrastructure (umbilicals, flowlines and risers) and gas export pipeline has been awarded to INTECSEA.
ConocoPhillips Australia West President, Chris Wilson, said the award of the FEED contracts represents a significant step in positioning Barossa as a leading candidate to extend the life of the DLNG facility for another two decades.
“Conducting Barossa FPSO FEED as a design competition continues our focus on strong cost discipline, which enables Barossa to compete both in our global portfolio and as a leading candidate to backfill DLNG,” Mr Wilson said.
“Barossa is the first potential DLNG backfill project to progress into the FEED phase, positioning it strongly to secure access to the DLNG capacity following the end of production at Bayu-Undan.”
“We look forward to working together with our selected FEED contractors to develop sufficient certainty of cost, schedule and execution planning to support a final investment decision (FID) at the end of 2019.”
Barossa would meet future global demand for natural gas and contribute significant income, employment and other benefits to the Northern Territory and Australia through continued operation of the DLNG facility for a further 20 plus years.
The Industry Capability Network (ICN) has been engaged by ConocoPhillips to assist with Australian vendor identification for the Barossa Offshore Project.
