Rick Wilkinson
OGJ Correspondent
MELBOURNE, Nov. 2 -- The Australian arm of Japan’s Inpex Corp. and its joint venture partner Total SA of France have started to release invitations to tender for the JV’s Ichthys LNG project facilities in the Browse basin off Western Australia.
The JV has released the details for the semisubmersible central processing facility. This will be one of the largest semisubmersible platforms in the world and the first to be built for the Australian industry.
The remaining tenders for the major engineering, procurement, and construction contracts will be released by yearend.
These will include the floating production, storage, and offloading vessel with a storage capacity of 1.14 million tonnes. Other tenders will be for umbilicals, risers, and flowlines, a subsea production system, and the 850-km gas export line that will transport gas to the LNG plant to be built in Darwin.
A number of the world’s leading engineering and construction companies have prequalified for the tender process.
The Ichthys project will deliver 8.4 million tonnes/year of LNG.
Inpex expects to announce a final investment decision during fourth-quarter 2011. In August, it was reported that Inpex was considering the sale of some of its stake in Ichthys (OGJ Online, Aug. 16, 2010).
Currently, Inpex holds a 76% interest and operatorship of the project, with Total holding the remainder.
