Technip Samsung wins Browse contract

France’s Technip and South Korea’s Samsung Heavy Industries have been signed up as the lead engineering and construction contractors for the Browse floating LNG project, continuing similar work they have undertaken for the Prelude FLNG project.

The Technip Samsung consortium has been awarded two contracts for the Browse project, located off the Kimberley coast 425 kilometres north of Broome.

The first covers front-end engineering design, and follows project operator Woodside’s announcement last week that the project joint venture had agreed to enter the FEED phase.

The FEED study will take into account the composition of the gas, local weather conditions and factors specific to the Brecknock, Calliance and Torosa fields, which collectively make up the Browse project.

The contract was awarded by Shell and immediately ‘novated’ to Woodside as project operator.

The second contract covers the engineering, procurement, construction and installation of three FLNG units, and is subject to a final investment decision by the project owners.

The Technip Samsung consortium aims to replicate the work it has done for Shell’s Prelude FLNG project, which is at an advanced construction stage, for the three FLNG units of the Browse project.

"We are proud to have been awarded this contract, which will associate the know-how and expertise gained on Prelude FLNG by our teams, while reinforcing our partnership with Samsung Heavy Industries," Technip regional president Nicoletta Giadrossi said.

The Browse project is jointly owned by Woodside, Shell, BP, Japan Australia LNG (MIMI Browse) and PetroChina.

The Browse contract signings follow a 2009 master agreement between Shell and the Technip Samsung consortium to work on the design, construction and installation of multiple floating LNG facilities over a period of up to 15 years.

Technip has worked on two FLNG facilities currently under construction – the Prelude facility, which has production capacity of 3.6 million tonnes per annum of LNG, and a Petronas facility in Malaysia, with capacity of 1.2mtpa.

Technip Oceania is ranked on the BNiQ database as the 10th largest engineering firm in WA with approximately 300 engineers and 460 personnel in Perth.

It is working on most of the big offshore oil and gas projects in Australia including Shell's Prelude FLNG, Chevron’s Gorgon and Wheatstone LNG projects, and INPEX’s Ichthys LNG project.

Samsung Heavy Industries descibes itself as the leader in the high-tech, high-value shipbuilding sector, maintaining the world’s number one share in the drill ship, LNG carrier and FPSO markets.