McDermott Scoops Oz Field Design Award

US engineer McDermott International said February 5 it has signed a contract with Australian Woodside Energy to undertake the front-end engineering and design (Feed) activities for a floating production unit (FPU) for the Scarborough field gas development in Western Australia. It did not say what the value of the award was, only that it would be included in its Q1 backlog. 

Woodside has said that Scarborough's gas would be developed with 12 subsea, high-rate gas wells tied back to a semi-submersible floating production unit in 900 metres of water, and transported by an 430-km pipeline to the existing Pluto LNG plant on the Burrup Peninsula.

McDermott's centre of excellence in The Hague, Netherlands, will lead the study and early engineering and the contract includes the option to progress to an engineering, procurement, construction and installation contract, if the partners move to a final investment decision.

McDermott said that it would use its "best-in-class engineering know-how and project execution expertise to ensure successful delivery of the project."

The FPU processes natural gas, which includes gas separation, dehydration and compression as well as monoethylene glycol regeneration and water handling. It will be remotely operated and minimally manned.