McDermott Starts Danish Platform Fabrication

US contractor McDermott said October 16 it has begun fabrication for the project to redevelop the Total-operated Tyra gasfield offshore Denmark.

Ten months ago McDermott was awarded a contract worth $500mn-$750mn to fabricate and assemble two separate work packages for the French producer, comprising of seven topside structures, six connecting bridges and six jacket extensions weighing a total of 33,000 metric tons – one of the largest combined projects for McDermott in the North Sea. Tyra is 225 km west of Esbjerg, Denmark.

It has now held a first steel-cutting ceremony at its fabrication yard in Batam, Indonesia to mark the start of fabrication (see banner photo, courtesy of McDermott). McDermott's senior vice president for Europe, Africa, Russia and Caspian, Tareq Kawash, said: "We expect to meet the final timeline for the two work packages scheduled for delivery in early 2020 and 2021."

Danish gas production will decline sharply in 2019-22 because the Tyra field, which processes 90% of the country's gas output, will close for the redevelopment from November 2019 until July 2022.  Tyra belongs to the Danish Underground Consortium (or DUC) which agreed a krone 21bn ($3.3bn) redevelopment of the field in December 2017; operator Total is increasing its stake in DUC from 31.2% to 43.2%.

McDermott was awarded the engineering, procurement, construction and onshore commissioning contract in December 2017 by Maersk Oil before that company's acquisition by Total in March 2018. Engineering was performed by McDermott's engineering hubs in the Malaysian capital Kuala Lumpur and in Chennai, India. Project and supply chain management services are performed in Kuala Lumpur.