LNG

Woodside Energy has achieved first gas from its Scarborough reservoir offshore Western Australia, feeding the Pluto LNG terminal, with the first cargo from Train 2 targeted for export in the fourth quarter of 2026.

Chiyoda and McDermott have signed a revised EPC contract for the Trains 2 & 3 of the $10 billion Golden Pass LNG project, concluding months of negotiations over future cost sharing and project responsibilities. Train 1 is in advanced commissioning, while Trains 2 and 3 are now expected to start up between late 2026 and 2027.

Woodfibre LNG, a joint venture of Pacific Energy and Enbridge, is going full steam on Canada’s first net-zero liquefaction terminal. First pipe rack modules arrived at the site near Squamish, BC.

Zachry Holdings, the lead contractor in the $10 billion project to transform the Golden Pass LNG terminal in Texas into an export plant for a joint venture comprising QatarEnergy and ExxonMobil has filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

A wholly owned subsidiary of US energy engineers McDermott has been awarded a significant contract by the Marsa liquefied natural gas project in the Sultanate of Oman on the Arabian Peninsula for storage and associated piping.

McDermott, based in Houston, Texas, has confirmed that its subsidiary CB&I will build a full containment concrete LNG storage tank at the Marsa project site at Oman's Port of Sohar.

French major TotalEnergies is going ahead with a large investment in the Marsa LNG project to serve as the first LNG bunkering hub in the Middle East.

The joint venture between TotalEnergies and Oman National Oil Company will build a liquefaction plant with 1 million tonnes per annum of output.

Feed-gas will come from Oman’s Mabrouk North-East field in the onshore Block 10 area.

Contractors

The main engineering, procurement and construction contracts have been awarded to France’s Technip Energies for the LNG plant and to CB&I for the 165,000 cubic metres capacity LNG storage tank.

The LNG is primarily intended to serve the marine fuel market in the Arabian Gulf region while LNG quantities not sold as bunker fuel will be off-taken by TotalEnergies and the Omani partner.

In addition to the storage tanks contract, CB&I will provide turnkey EPC services for the tank and associated piping.

Project delivery will be executed in Oman, where CB&I has been continually present since 1968, with support from CB&I's Dubai office.

“Through this project, CB&I will contribute to the construction of one of the lowest GHG emissions intensity LNG plants ever built,” said Cesar Canals, President and Chief Executive of CB&I.

“It supports our ambition to build storage for projects that will help provide reliable energy to markets,” Canals explained.

“It will also pave the way for similar storage opportunities in the future and continues our long history of execution excellence in the Middle East, specifically Oman,” he added.

Work is expected to commence with construction activities in the fourth quarter of 2024.

The overall Marsa bunkering fuel projects is targeted for completion in 2028.

Thailand’s state-run energy firm, Public Company Exploration and Production (PTTEP), has awarded US engineers McDermott a sizeable contract for transportation, installation and commissioning of a project offshore the state of Sabah in east Malaysia.

US energy engineering company McDermott has been awarded two contracts by the leading LNG producer Qatar for the Arabian Gulf nation’s largest oil field.

McDermott, the US engineering and construction company, and energy and LNG technology company Baker Hughes, have completed the installation of subsea infrastructure at the Ichthys gas field in northern Australia linked to the liquefaction plant operated by Japan’s Inpex Corp.

The contract was awarded to a McDermott and Baker Hughes consortium in 2019 by Inpex, the operator of the Ichthys project at Badin Point near Darwin in Australia’s Northern Territory.

Ichthys LNG has as additional shareholders French major TotalEnergies and the Australian subsidiaries of CPC Corp. of Taiwan, and Japanese utilities an importers Tokyo Gas, Osaka Gas, Kansai Electric Power, JERA and Toho Gas.

Key LNG producer

Ichthys LNG has nameplate capacity of 9.3 million tonnes per annum LNG and 1.65 million tonnes of liquefied petroleum gas per annum along with more than 100,000 barrels of condensate per day at peak output.

The McDermott-Baker Hughes subsea infrastructure development project included engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) of umbilicals, risers and flowlines (URF), a subsea production system comprised of a new 7-inch (approximately 18 centimetres) vertical Ichthys LNG planthristmas tree (VXT) system.

McDermotts said this is all part of forming a subsea well gathering system (GS4) tied back to the existing the “Ichthys Explorer “central processing facility.

The consortium’s scope of work also included an in-fill URF EPCI involving the development of new subsea wells tied-in to the existing gathering systems.

“The McDermott and Baker Hughes partnership has been marked by resilience and adaptability, guided by our firm commitment to deliver for the INPEX-operated Ichthys LNG and Australia,” said Mahesh Swaminathan, McDermott’s Senior Vice President, Subsea and Floating Facilities.

Engineering capabilities

“Together, leveraging McDermott’s unique end-to-end EPCI capabilities and Baker Hughes’s subsea development solutions, we navigated project complexities and overcame the unique challenges posed by the pandemic,” Swaminathan explained.

“Our hard work paid off, and I would like to thank our teams in Perth (Australia), Batam (Indonesia), and beyond, whose collective efforts enabled the safe completion of this important work scope,” Swaminathan added.

Romain Chambault, Baker Hughes Senior Vice President, Subsea Projects and Services, said the completion was achieved through the successful partnership between Baker Hughes and McDermott to execute the project for Inpex.

“The amount of collaboration shown between the consortium has been truly unique and serves as an industry benchmark for the successful execution of large, complex EPCI subsea projects,” Chambault stated.

McDermott, the US energy and LNG engineering company, has been awarded an offshore contract from Malaysia Marine and Heavy Engineering for the Kasawari (Sarawak Gas Field) carbon-capture and storage (CCS) project located offshore Sarawak in East Malaysia.

Under the scope of the contract, McDermott will perform transportation and the structural installation of a 138-kilometre (85 miles) pipeline section, a 15,000 metric tonne (MT) CCS platform jacket and a bridge connecting to the existing central processing platform.

“Set to become one of the largest offshore CCS projects in the world, the Kasawari CCS award showcases the valuable role we have in supporting our clients through the energy transition,” explained Mahesh Swaminathan, McDermott's Senior Vice President, Subsea and Floating Facilities.

Houston-based McDermott said the installation activities would be performed by one of McDermott's heavy-lift and pipelay vessels.

Flaring reduced

Petronas Carigali, the exploration and production arm of state energy company Petronas, said the Kasawari CCS project when completed was expected to reduce carbon-dioxide volumes emitted via flaring by 3.3MT CO2e per annum.

JX Nippon Oil & Gas Exploration Corp., a participant in Asia-Pacific LNG projects in Malaysia, Indonesia and Papua New Guinea, has also been seeking to acquire interests in several natural gas fields offshore Malaysia with CCS attached.

JX Nippon has operated in Malaysia for over 20 years and hopes to focus on additional development initially of the Helang gas field.

The company is also continuing further study of the BIGST project, a large-scale venture that combines the development of high-CO2 gas fields and CCS, in collaboration with Petronas.

Various other Petronas gas fields are targeted for CCS including Bujang, Inas, Guling, Sepat and Tujoh.

The resources in these fields are in the order of several trillion cubic feet (Tcf) of natural gas.

The BIGST project study reflects the efforts towards a fast-paced development of new Malaysian gas fields using CCS and storage.

JX Nipppon said that adopting the CCS solution along with gas was in line with the strategy of the company, which is part of the Japanese ENEOS Group.

US energy engineering company McDermott has received a limited notice to proceed for an engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contract from Shell for the Manatee natural gas field development project offshore the East Coast of Trinidad and Tobago with supplies destined for LNG production and domestic gas supplies.