Woodside packed out a WA Works sundowner with contractors looking to get involved with looming LNG opportunities.
About 200 people attended Woodside’s first Perth supplier event – held at CCIWA’s offices in East Perth – for its $16 billion (US$11bn) Scarborough to Pluto LNG project.
Woodside’s two key project managers, Morgan Harland (Scarborough) and Rob MacKinnon (Pluto) were supported by half-a-dozen contractors appointed to carry out engineering and design services for the offshore Scarborough gas project and the onshore Pluto Train 2 LNG expansion.
A meeting table run by Bechtel, the front-end engineering design (FEED) contractor on Pluto Train 2, was a popular destination for suppliers, while others seeking offshore work gravitated to tables housed by contractors McDermott Australia, Subsea Integration Alliance, Saipem Australia, Intecsea and Marubeni-Itochu Tubulars Oceania.
Woodside’s Harland said the company was still targeting a final investment decision (FID) on Scarborough for next year, to enable the project to be ready for start-up in 2023.
Simultaneously, FEED on Pluto Train 2 was also being progressed towards FID next year, to be ready for start-up in 2024.
“While specialist components, such as the floating production unit (FPU) and the LNG train modules are being fabricated overseas, we expect that there will be many other opportunities for local businesses, based on capability and competitiveness, as we seek to maximize these aspects,” Harland said.
“We anticipate that local supply chain opportunities for the construction phase will increase as we reach a final investment decision for Scarborough and Pluto. And we look forward to talking to you more about the skills and expertise you offer.”
WA Works understands the Scarborough FPU, likely to be built in China, will be about half the size of Inpex’s 120,000t Central Processing facility for Ichthys in the Browse Basin.
Pluto project Manager MacKinnon, meanwhile, said Woodside was “strongly committed to maximising the use of local engineering expertise in Western Australia”.
He said Woodside and its contractors used the services offered by ICN Gateway to understand local business capability and capacity, and to maximise local participation.
Click here to view scope of work opportunities for Scarborough and here for opportunities on Pluto Train 2.
MacKinnon said Woodside had started supplier engagement in Karratha in May and had since hosted a second successful forum in Karratha.
“And I can see from the audience here, there’s a lot of interest. As a result, we will be looking at another forum in Perth, really before the end of 2019.”
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