PERTH (miningweekly.com) – Oil and gas major Santos has awarded three major engineering contracts on the front-end engineering and design (FEED) phase of its Barossa offshore project.
Santos on Monday said that separate engineering contracts for the proposed floating production storage and offloading facility (FPSO) have been awarded to MODEC and a consortium between TechnipFMC and Samsung Heavy Industries.
A design competition will be conducted between the two groups.
A third contract for the subsea infrastructure, including umbilicals, flowlines, risers and gas export pipeline, has been awarded to INTECSEA.
Santos MD and CEO Kevin Gallagher told shareholders that the FPSO design competition between leading engineering contractors, with experience in the Australian market, will ensure a robust, cost competitive package is delivered ahead of a final investment decision.
“Other FEED works are also moving ahead with geotechnical and geophysical surveys of the pipeline route and subsea manifold locations currently under way in the field,” Gallagher said.
The Barossa development concept includes the FPSO, six subsea production wells to be drilled in the initial phase, a subsea production system, supporting in-field subsea infrastructure and a gas pipeline to Darwin.
The Barossa field is some 300 km north of Darwin and sits in Santos' Northern Australia portfolio. A final investment decision is expected towards the end of 2019.
“The award of the FEED contracts is another big step towards ensuring Barossa replaces Bayu-Undan production when it ceases in early 2020s,” Gallagher said.