Barossa Partners Award FPSO Contract
Australia’s Santos October 30 said a contract for the delivery of a floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility for the Barossa gas project has been awarded to Japan’s Modec International.
The FPSO contract is the project's biggest - comprising engineering, procurement of materials, equipment and services, construction, installation, commissioning and testing of the facility, the company said. The Barossa project is nearing the end of the front-end engineering design (Feed) phase and includes an FPSO facility, subsea wells and subsea production system, and gas export pipeline.
The FPSO will be located in the Barossa field, 300-km north of Darwin, and export gas to Darwin LNG via a new 260-km pipeline tied into the existing Bayu-Darwin pipeline. It will also store condensate for periodic offloading to tankers, Santos said.
"The project is technically and commercially robust, and we are closing in on FID early in the new year, with contracts for the subsea umbilicals, flowlines and drilling of six subsea production wells to be awarded in the near future," Santos CEO Kevin Gallagher said.
The Barossa field sits within Santos' northern Australia portfolio, one of the company's core long-life, natural gas asset regions. The project area encompasses petroleum permit NT/RL5 located in Commonwealth waters offshore Northern Territory.
Santos holds a 25% interest in the Barossa joint venture along with partners ConocoPhillips (37.5% and operator) and SK E&S (37.5%). Santos is also a joint venture partner in Darwin LNG with an 11.5% interest.
“Final investment decision is progressing according to plan while we continue working collaboratively with Santos to finalise transitional arrangements and close the sale of our Australia-West assets,” Chris Wilson, ConocoPhillips Australia-West president, said in a separate statement.
Earlier this month, Santos announced the acquisition of ConocoPhillips' northern Australia portfolio including its interests in Darwin LNG, Bayu-Undan and Barossa. Completion of the transaction and planned sell-down to SK E&S will see Santos' interests in these assets increase to 43.4%, 43.4% and 62.5%, respectively.