Two subcontracts to support development of the floating production unit on Woodside Petroleum group’s proposed Scarborough gas field development on the Exmouth Plateau off Western Australia have been signed by SNC Lavalin.
SNC Lavalin is to provide front-end engineering design support for the semisubmersible hull and mooring system as well as model testing scoping and supervision and ancillary scopes.
The company also will provide overall technical safety, formal safety assessment, and risk engineering services to support the engineering design activities for Scarborough.
The two contracts will be run out of the company’s Houston offshore engineering subsidiary and its Atkins business in Western Australia.
Both scopes have an option to extend to detailed design engineering subject to the Scarborough joint venture reaching a final investment decision for the project, which is scheduled for 2020.
Scarborough field is 375 km west-northwest of the Burrup Peninsula. The plan is to have seven subsea gas wells producing as much as 300 MMcfd of gas and tied back to a semisubmersible FPU fitted with gas compression and water-handling facilities and be capable of accepting future tie-ins. It would be moored in 900 m of water close to the field.
The dewatered gas would be sent to shore via a 430-km pipeline that would be laid first to the Woodside-operated Pluto offshore platform and then on to the Pluto onshore LNG plant facilities on the Burrup Peninsula through a duplicate trunkline to the existing Pluto pipeline.
Scarborough field reservoir has a porosity of 30% and a permeability of 1,600 md. The field has an estimated 2C resource of 7.3 tcf of gas, composed of 96% methane and 4% nitrogen and contains 50 ppm of carbon dioxide.