Chevron Australia lets services contract for Gorgon

July 23, 2012
Chevron Australia Pty. Ltd. has let a $600 million, 22-year services contract to GE to maintain compressor trains and associated equipment at the Gorgon LNG project offshore northwestern Australia.

Chevron Australia Pty. Ltd. has let a $600 million, 22-year services contract to GE to maintain compressor trains and associated equipment at the Gorgon LNG project offshore northwestern Australia.

Under the agreement, GE Oil & Gas’ global services division will provide Chevron Australia with scheduled maintenance, resident engineers, monitoring and diagnostics of installed equipment coupled with engineering analytics, and a guarantee “relating to continuity of production,” GE said. GE also will manage inventory, supplying initial spare components.

GE’s first contract performance manager is to begin work in Perth in October.

The Gorgon project will develop Gorgon and Jansz/Io offshore gas fields, within the Greater Gorgon area, about 80 miles off northwestern Western Australia. It includes construction of a 15 million tonne/year LNG plant on Barrow Island and a domestic gas plant with the capacity to provide about 300 MMbtu/day of gas to Western Australia.

Chevron operates the Gorgon project. Its joint-venture ownership consists of Australian subsidiaries of Chevron 47.3%, ExxonMobil 25%, Shell 25%, Osaka Gas 1.25%, Tokyo Gas 1%, and Chubu Electric Power 0.417%.

Three 5-million tpy GE main refrigerant compression trains, each consisting of two GE Frame-7 gas turbines plus advanced technology liquefaction compressors, will be used to produce LNG.

Before liquefaction, carbon dioxide will be removed and injected into depleted natural gas wells 1,300 m below the sea to ensure safe storage of CO2 and reduce emissions. Six surface-operating, 15-Mw electric-motor driven GE compression trains will perform this phase.

Among other GE components for Gorgon are five 130-Mw Frame-9 gas turbines in modules to meet the power-generation needs of Barrow Island’s gas treatment and liquefaction and three main refrigerant compression trains driven by six Frame-7 gas turbines required for production of the LNG.