The U.S. engineering and construction giant KBR has secured a pre-FEED contract by Japan’s Inpex for the Abadi LNG project for the development of a gas field in the Arafura Sea in Indonesia.
KBR will provide services including site master plan development, scope of work for the FEED phase as well as an EPC schedule and cost estimate.
This work is expected to be performed within approximately six months, with KBR performing studies to establish the configuration of the LNG process plant, supporting utilities, and product storage and export facilities.
Inpex recently said it would formulate a detailed revised plan of development (POD) contingent on the results of the pre-FEED work and ongoing discussions with the Indonesian authorities “to achieve a cost-efficient and economically competitive project.”
Following government approval of the revised POD, a series of subsequent evaluations including front-end engineering and design (FEED) work will be carried out leading to a final investment decision (FID).
It is worth reminding that Indonesian authorities in December 2010 approved the initial plan of development (POD-1) for the project, which included deploying a floating LNG (FLNG) plant with an annual processing capacity of 2.5 million tons.
No to FLNG
In 2013 and 2014, Inpex drilled three more appraisal wells, confirming a greater volume of natural gas reserves that were certified by the Indonesian authorities.
Inpex then revised its concept selection studies to factor in this increased volume of reserve and decided it would be best to center the development on a large-scale FLNG. In September 2015, the company submitted a revised POD envisioning a larger 7.5 million tons per annum LNG processing capacity of the FLNG to the Indonesian government authorities.
However, in April 2016, the authorities responded by instructing the company to re-propose the POD for the Abadi LNG Project based on an onshore LNG development scheme.
Following discussions with the authorities that included agreeing to the need for an economically viable project, Inpex is now set to start pre-FEED work based on an onshore LNG development scheme with an annual LNG production capacity of 9.5 million tons.
Offshore Energy Today Staff