McDermott International continues its winning streak in the Middle East with a mega offshore contract from QatarEnergy, a long-standing key customer, to deliver engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) for the North Field East (NFE) Topsides and the North Field East (NFE) Offshore Pipelines and Subsea Cables projects, with an option included to also award the North Field South (NFS) Offshore Topsides—representing one of the largest single contracts McDermott has been awarded in its company history.
McDermott has decades of experience delivering world-class EPCI projects in Qatar, a historically strategic market. The project will be managed and engineered from the McDermott Doha office with significant fabrication taking place at QFAB, the McDermott-Nakilat joint venture fabrication yard in Qatar, building end-to-end execution capability in Qatar and significantly enhancing the localization Program.
"We are very pleased to be awarded this strategic project by QatarEnergy—it's a perfect example of McDermott's Offshore shallow water strategy using our FEED (front-end design) expertise to develop an optimized design one, build many concept for offshore structures followed through with strong in-house engineering, supply chain management and utilization of our proven fabrication facilities and marine pipelay assets, all using our industry leading GeminiXD digital project delivery tools," said Samik Mukherjee, McDermott's Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. "As part of the NFE LNG complex, the offshore facilities are an essential contributor toward the energy transition goals of COP-26. In line with McDermott's overarching sustainability commitments, we will continue to use our digital carbon footprint tool, ArborXD, to monitor and proactively manage GHG emissions during the project. The structures delivered from our yard in Batam will be the first to be fabricated there following our recent commitment to import a low-carbon or renewable power into the facility."
"For McDermott, this contract shows that we are back stronger than ever and our key customers have confidence in our ability to deliver strategically significant energy infrastructure," said Tareq Kawash, McDermott Senior Vice President, Europe, Middle East and Africa. "Our technology, fabrication-driven approach, along with our involvement in this specific offshore development, which began with the front-end engineering design—make us the ideal partner to provide QatarEnergy with the confidence and assurance required to execute a project of such complexity and magnitude."
The NFE development will provide feed gas into the four new LNG Trains currently under construction and, together, with the NFS infrastructure, which will provide feed gas for the future additional two LNG trains, will enable an increase in total LNG production in Qatar from 77 million tons per annum (MTPA) to 126 MTPA.
The scope of the contract includes the fabrication and installation of eight wellhead topsides (WHT) for NFE and a further five WHT for NFS. The significant subsea pipeline scope includes over 300 miles (500 kilometers) of pipelines and, in addition, McDermott will install over 140 miles (225 kilometers) of 33kV subsea cables and associated works. For the first time, four of these WHT, plus all subsea infrastructure, will be fabricated in QFAB, improving the in-country execution platform to support future energy developments. The remaining fabrication will be done in collaboration with McDermott's facility in Batam, Indonesia.