Japanese provider of offshore floating solutions MODEC has signed a contract with ConocoPhillips to supply a floating production storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel for the Barossa field, offshore Australia.
MODEC said on Wednesday that the Barossa FPSO was intended to produce gas and condensate from subsea wells, and after treatment, supply feed gas to the Darwin LNG plant via a gas export pipeline.
The company was awarded a FEED contract of the Barossa FPSO in June 2018 and has now been selected as the turnkey contractor based upon its successful performance and deliverables of the FEED contract.
The Barossa FPSO is MODEC’s largest gas FPSO to date, which will be able to export over 600 million standard cubic feet of gas per day as well as store up to 650,000 barrels of condensate for export.
It has been designed to withstand a 100-year cyclone event at a water depth of 260 meters and located some 300 kilometers off north of Darwin. The Barossa FPSO will be MODEC’s 6th FPSO in Australia.
According to the company, it will be responsible for the EPCI work on the FPSO, including topsides processing equipment as well as hull and marine systems.
Scheduled for delivery during 2023, the FPSO will be permanently moored by an internal turret mooring system supplied by a MODEC group company – SOFEC.
It is worth noting that the Barossa FPSO will be the first application of MODEC’s M350 hull design, which was developed to accommodate larger topsides and larger storage capacity than conventional VLCC tankers, with a design service life of 25 years and beyond.
Yuji Kozai , president and CEO of MODEC, said: “ This contract award of a gas FPSO reinforces one of our important business strategies, which we aim to penetrate into the gas-related market.
“ Also, this new contract represents a significant milestone for MODEC in applying our next generation new built FPSO hull design of which we have developed to meet the new market demands for larger FPSOs. ”
The Barossa joint venture is operated by ConocoPhillips Australia Barossa with a 37.5 percent interest. The two partners in the project are SK E&S Australia and Santos, with 37.5 and 25 percent interest, respectively.