US company picks up new contract on Aramco offshore fields

26 January 2017

McDermott has won a series of contracts as part of Aramco’s Long-Term Agreement

US-based engineering group McDermott has won a contract to install facilities at Saudi Arabia’s Safaniya and Zuluf offshore oil fields.

The engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contract was awarded by Saudi Aramco as part of its Long-Term Agreement programme to upgrade facilities at its oil and gas fields in the Gulf.

McDermott said that the brownfield project is part of a wider programme to replace aging facilities with electrified platforms to enhance the potential of the fields.

The contract includes the design, procurement, fabrication, transportation, installation, testing and pre-commissioning of nine slipover jackets and decks, subsea pipelines and cables, as well as the associated demolition of certain facilities, at the Safaniya field.

The contract also includes one single well observation platform in the Zuluf field.

McDermott was also recently awarded an EPCI contract for four jackets and three gas observation platforms for Saudi Aramco.

The Safaniya oil field, located about 200km north of Dhahran in the Gulf, is currently the largest offshore oil field in the world. Over the last six years, McDermott has been involved with three major electrification projects in the Safaniya field, which included 13 new platforms and 34 platform upgrades and modifications, the company said.

During this period, McDermott installed Saudi Aramco’s largest platform at 6,600 tonnes and the world’s longest 230kV composite cable at approximately 47km.

Work on the contract is expected to begin immediately and will be reflected in McDermott’s fourth quarter 2016 backlog, the US-based group said.

McDermott plans to use its engineering and procurement teams in Dubai, UAE and its recently opened office in Al-Khobar, Saudi Arabia. Construction will take place at McDermott’s fabrication facilities in Dubai and Dammam, Saudi Arabia.

The LTA gives five interantional contractors exclusive rights to bid for several oil and gas producing platforms, tie-in platforms, pipelines, power cables and related facilities under Aramco’s masterplan for its offshore fields.

The LTA deal was initially signed in 2015 with four international EPC contractors including the US’ Dynamic Industries, a joint venture of India’s Larsen & Toubro, and Singapore’s Emas, McDermott and Italy’s Saipem. UAE-based National Petroleum Construction Company (NPCC) became the fifth LTA contractor on 13 October 2016.

Most recently, NPCC announced it had won its first two contracts as part of the LTA – an EPC deal to install 17 jackets at the Berri and Marjan oil fields.

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