Japan’s MODEC lands Barossa FPSO award

Japan’s MODEC has signed a contract with ConocoPhillips to supply a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for the Barossa field, offshore Australia.

The Barossa FPSO is intended to produce gas and condensate from subsea wells and after treatment, supply feed gas to the Darwin LNG Plant via a gas export pipeline.

MODEC was awarded a Front End Engineering Design (FEED) contract of the Barossa FPSO in June 2018. MODEC said on Wednesday it had now been selected as the turnkey contractor based upon its successful performance and deliverables of the FEED contract.

The Barossa FPSO is MODEC’s largest size of “Gas FPSO” to date, which will be able to export over 600 million standard cubic feet of gas per day as well as store up to 650,000 barrels of condensate for export. It has been designed to withstand a 100-year cyclone event at a water depth of 260 meters and located some 300 kilometers off north of Darwin, Australia.

MODEC will be responsible for the engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) of the Barossa FPSO, including topsides processing equipment as well as hull and marine systems.

Scheduled for delivery during 2023, the FPSO will be permanently moored by an internal turret mooring system supplied by a MODEC group company, SOFEC.

Next generation hull 

MODEC said that the Barossa FPSO would be the first application of MODEC’s “M350 Hull.” It is a next generation new built hull for FPSOs, full double hull design which has been developed to accommodate larger topsides and larger storage capacity than conventional VLCC tankers, with a longer design service life of 25 years and beyond. The hull will be built by Dalian Shipbuilding Industry in Dalian, China.

The FPSO features a boiler and steam turbine based power generation system instead of conventional gas turbines, which helps reduce the carbon dioxide footprint of the facility.

Yuji Kozai, President and CEO of MODEC, said: “This contract award of a Gas FPSO reinforces one of our important business strategies, which we aim to penetrate into gas-related market. Also this new contract represents a significant milestone for MODEC in applying our next generation new built FPSO hull design of which we have developed to meet the new market demands for larger FPSOs.”

The Barossa FPSO will be MODEC’s 6th FPSO in Australia.

The FPSO will be located in the Barossa field, 300 kilometres north of Darwin, and export gas to Darwin LNG via a new 260 kilometre pipeline tied into the existing Bayu-Darwin pipeline. The FPSO will also store condensate for periodic offloading to tankers. The project area encompasses petroleum permit NT/RL5 located in Commonwealth waters offshore Northern Territory.

FID in early 2020

The Barossa joint venture is currently formed by ConocoPhillips (field operator, 37.5%), SK E&S Australia (37.5%), and Santos (25%). Santos is also a joint venture partner in Darwin LNG with an 11.5% interest.

On October 14, 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

Santos Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer, Kevin Gallagher, said: “This contract with MODEC is the result of a FEED competition and its award is our biggest step towards pushing the button on the development of Barossa.”

“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.”

Chris Wilson, ConocoPhillips Australia-West president, said: “This is the largest and most significant contract to be awarded for the Barossa Project and a significant milestone in moving closer to a final investment decision in early 2020.”

TechnipFMC has already been awarded a contract to deliver Subsea Production System for the Barossa project and the contract for the engineering, procurement, construction, and installation of the 260-kilometer gas export pipeline has been awarded to Allseas.

Offshore Energy Today Staff

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