McDermott fleet delivers major milestone for ‘largest subsea project in Asia Pacific’

U.S. offshore construction and engineering contractor McDermott has delivered a gas field for what it says is the largest subsea project in the Asia Pacific.

Announcing the completion of the project on Wednesday, McDermott pointed out it had navigated both the challenges of COVID-19 and an active monsoon season to deliver the gas field, known as the U-Field, for ONGC’s KG-DWN 98/2 Block project.

As a reminder, India’s ONGC in October 2018 awarded the ‘largest ever’ subsea equipment deal in India to Baker Hughes, McDermott, and Larsen & Toubro.

Samik Mukherjee, McDermott’s Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer, commented: “Completing this season of the Bay of Bengal campaign to deliver the gas field for ONGC, combined with our previous achievement of early first gas in 14 months, demonstrates McDermott’s ability to deliver complex subsea projects in challenging circumstances.”

According to McDermott, ONGC’s KG-DWN 98/2 Block project, located in the Bay of Bengal off the east coast of India, is the largest and one of the most complex subsea projects in the Asia Pacific, involving major subsea infrastructure installation in ultra-deepwater. McDermott is delivering two gas systems for ONGC’s gas fields, U-Field and R-Field. The project is being executed in a consortium, with Larsen & Toubro Hydrocarbon Engineering (L&T HE) manufacturing the structures in India.

Upon completion, the gas field is expected to significantly increase domestic production, helping meet India’s increasing energy demands while lowering reliance on imports.

Subramanian Sarma, Whole-time Director and Senior Executive Vice President (Energy), L&T, CEO and MD, L&T HE, said: “The opening of the U1-B (GX-06) well in the DWN-98/2 block is a major milestone that we can all be immensely proud of.

“That we managed to achieve this despite extremely difficult project terrain and weather conditions even as a global pandemic raged on, speaks volumes of the resolve of the project teams.”

The U-Field is now connected to ONGC’s Vashishtha subsea infrastructure. McDermott’s vessels, including Derrick Barge 30, Derrick Lay Vessel 2000, the North Ocean 102, and Lay Vessel 105 (LV105) installed hundreds of miles of pipeline, 60 kilometres of umbilicals and nearly 16 kilometres of flexible pipes.

“This is the fourth gas production milestone McDermott has delivered on the east coast of India in the last 18 months,” said Mahesh Swaminathan, McDermott’s Senior Vice President, Asia Pacific.

Swaminathan also added that this campaign marked the first use of pipe-in-pipe insulation technology in an offshore India project and that the LV105 also installed the first pipe-in-pipe production flowline in India as part of this campaign.