Hess completes Equus appraisal program off Western Australia

Sept. 28, 2012
Hess Corp. has completed its appraisal program on the Equus natural gas project offshore Western Australia and is calling for registrations of interest for major subsea and floating production system contracts.

Hess Corp. has completed its appraisal program on the Equus natural gas project offshore Western Australia and is calling for registrations of interest for major subsea and floating production system contracts.

The subsea structure will comprise three main rigid flowlines connecting to 18 production wells to a floating production system via rigid carbon steel catenary risers.

Hess wants to hear from those interested in tendering for seven subsea packages—infield flowline insulation; subsea installation; supply of line pipe and pipe bends and separately for supply of the coating for linepipe and pipe bends; supply of a subsea control system, supply of subsea control umbilicals; and supply of subsea christmas trees.

The FPS will be a 40,000 tonne semisubmersible vessel permanently moored in 1,070 m of water.

There will be four FPS packages—engineering, procurement, and construction of hull and mooring; engineering, procurement, and construction of topsides; FPS installation on site; FPS transportation to site; and topsides and hull integration.

Hess is calling for registration for all packages by Oct. 19.

The WorleyParsons-Intecsea joint venture was awarded the front-end engineering and design contract for the project in November 2011 and has been working on the FPS during this year.

Equus lies in the wholly owned permit WA-390-P in Carnarvon basin between the Greater Gorgon fields and the Scarborough gas on the Exmouth Plateau.

The appraisal program saw 13 out of the 16 wells drilled as successful gas discoveries. Five wells were flow tested.

Hess is aiming for a final investment decision by mid-2013 and for an onstream date of 2018.

Destination for the Equus gas has yet to be decided, but it is slated to be tied into a third party facility. The Gorgon-Jansz, Pluto, or Wheatstone LNG plants are all potential connections.