Perth-based engineering company Monadelphous Group announced it has won a major long term maintenance and modifications services contract with Shell Australia’s Prelude Floating Liquefied Natural Gas (FLNG) project.
The $200 million contract relates to services to be provided to the construction of the Prelude facility, which is located in the Browse Basin, approximately 475 km north-northeast of Broome, in Western Australia.
Monadelphous will provide maintenance, brownfield modifications and turnaround services to the LNG process plant, support utilities, hull and non-process infrastructure including accommodation and control rooms.
The engineering firm will also deliver fabrication services from Darwin, to support the offshore operations.
According to Monadelphous, the contract covers an initial period of seven years, with the option to extend services for another two years. The firm says the contract will create business opportunities and employment for local and Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders.
Shell Australia’s Prelude FLNG project, currently in progress, is set to be the largest floating offshore facility ever constructed, measuring 488 m long, 74 m wide, and weighing more than 600,000 tonnes fully ballasted, dwarfing even the largest aircraft carrier.
When completed, it will be deployed off the northwest coast of Western Australia to extract and process gas from the Prelude and Concerto gas fields, over a period of 25 years.
As Shell’s first Australian deployment of FLNG technology, and perhaps the world’s first FLNG facility, Prelude will allow for the production, liquefaction, storage and transfer of LNG at sea. The integrated facility will also be able to process and export LPG and condensate.
FLNG technology will reduce both the project costs and the environmental footprint of an LNG development, by eliminating the need to construct long pipelines to shore, as well as compression platforms to push the gas to shore.
FLNG will also allow access to develop “stranded” offshore gas reserves, which are reserves considered uneconomic for development via an onshore plant due to their remote location and relatively small volume.
Monadelphous Managing Director Rob Velletri stated that the firm has a long term goal of becoming the partner of choice in the provision of FLNG services, and the contract win is a firm step towards that goal.
“This contract is of significant strategic importance to Monadelphous,” Velletri said. “Our successful history of delivering maintenance services to LNG facilities around Australia demonstrates our leadership in oil and gas maintenance and our capability to deliver a diverse range of operations and maintenance services for both onshore and offshore facilities.”