Rick Wilkinson
OGJ Correspondent
MELBOURNE, May 1 -- The Inpex Australia-Total SA joint venture has let the front-end engineering and design (FEED) contract to Amec PLC for the Ithchys gas field development facilities in the Browse basin off Western Australia.
Amec has been chosen as lead contractor and will be supported by subcontractors Aker Solutions and JP Kenny.
The offshore FEED work includes an 850-km subsea pipeline from the field off Broome in Western Australia extending east to Blaydin Point near Darwin in the Northern Territory. Blaydin Point will be the location of a gas processing and liquefaction plant. The contract also includes engineering for the semisubmersible central offshore processing facility as well as a floating production, storage, and offloading vessel, umbilicals, risers, and flowlines at the field.
Aker Solutions will carry out the central processing facility and FPSO hull engineering work and JP Kenny will conduct the pipeline and umbilical, riser, and flowline work.
Award of the FEED contract means that the project has now entered an advanced stage in which facilities will be defined and evaluated in more detail before the final investment decision on the $12 billion (Aus.) project.
The FEED contract for the two-train LNG plant was awarded in January to a consortium of JGC Corp., Chiyoda Corp., and KBR.
The latest contract comes just 2 weeks after Inpex opened an office in Darwin to host the project which is expected to produce more than 8 million tonnes/year of LNG as well as 1.6 million tpy of LPG and 100,000 b/d of condensate.
First shipment of LNG is scheduled for 2015. Inpex is operator with 76% and Total has 24%.