Woodside has signed four contracts for front-end engineering design (FEED) activities for the proposed Scarborough field development project in the Indian Ocean off the Western Australian coast.

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Image: Woodside awards four contracts for Scarborough field development. Photo: courtesy of QR9iudjz0/Freeimages.com.

Located in the Carnarvon Basin, the Scarborough field is estimated to have 7.3 Tcf (2C) of dry gas in place.

Woodside said that the contracts it has awarded cover engineering activities associated with the floating production unit of the upstream development, the export trunkline and the subsea umbilical risers and flowlines.

The Australian oil and gas company said that each of the four contracts has an option to progress to execute phase activities. The options will be subject to a positive final investment decision (FID) being taken on the project by the Scarborough field partners among other conditions.

For the engineering studies for the floating production unit, Woodside has given a contract to McDermott Australia. Included in the contract is the option to move on to an engineering, procurement and construction contract for execution of phase activities.

A second contract, to undertake engineering studies for the subsea umbilical risers and flowlines, has been given to Subsea Integration Alliance made up of OneSubsea and Subsea 7. The consortium’s contract comes with an option to extend to an engineering, procurement, construction and installation contract for execution of phase activities.

Woodside has awarded the third contract to Saipem Australia for export trunkline engineering support services. The contract comes with an option for line pipe coating and installation activities.

For export trunkline engineering work, Woodside has given a contract to Intecsea. Each of the four contracts will be initially funded by Woodside on a 100% basis.

Woodside CEO Peter Coleman said: “We have made good progress since announcing last year that we had increased our stake in Scarborough. The award of these contracts brings us closer to unlocking the Scarborough resource.

“We want to continue to maintain the momentum that has been generated during 2018 towards a targeted final investment decision in 2020.”

Woodside said that its preferred concept for the Scarborough field development is by connecting new offshore facilities to a 430km or so long export pipeline to the Burrup Peninsula with onshore processing at the expanded Pluto LNG facility.

The operator of the Scarborough field is Woodside with a stake of 75% while the remaining 25% stake in the offshore field is held by BHP.

In August 2018, Woodside gave a contract to Wood Group to support the execution of concept definition for the Scarborough project.