Aramco contracts McDermott for replacement offshore platforms

Jan. 25, 2017
McDermott International has secured two new offshore contracts for projects in the Middle East.

Offshore staff

DUBAI, UAEMcDermott International has secured two new offshore contracts for projects in the Middle East.

Saudi Aramco commissioned EPCI services for its offshore Safaniya and Zuluf fields, under a wide-ranging brownfield program to replace aging facilities with electrified platforms in order to enhance the fields’ potential.

The contract scope covers design, procurement, fabrication, transportation, installation, testing, and pre-commissioning of nine slipover jackets and decks, subsea pipelines and cables, and demolition of certain facilities at theSafaniya oil field; and provision of a single-well observation platform at Zuluf.

Safaniya, 125 mi (201 km) north of Dhahran off Saudi Arabia’s east coast, is the world’s largest offshore oil field.

McDermott’s involvement in the development started in 1964, with the company going on to install 62 platforms and numerous associated flexibles, umbilicals, flow/trunk pipelines, and power/composite cables.

During the past six years it has also been involved in three major electrification projects at Safaniya that included 13 new platforms and upgrades and modifications to 34 existing facilities.

Over this period the company installed Saudi Aramco’s largest offshore platform, weighing 6,600 tons, and what it claims is theworld’s longest 230-kV composite cable with a length of around 29 mi (46.7 km).

McDermott’s engineering and procurement teams in Dubai and Al Khobar, Saudi Arabia, will work on engineering for the new award, with construction performed at the company’s fabrication sites in Dubai and Dammam. McDermott vessels will perform the offshore installations.

In addition, McDermott has secured what it calls a “sizeable” pipelay contract in the region from an unnamed operator. This takes in engineering, procurement, and installation of two oil pipelines offshore: work is due to be completed by mid-2018.

In this case, the contractor’s teams in Dubai will perform detailed engineering and procurement, with its vessels undertaking offshore installations next year.

01/25/2017