Offshore Staff
(New Zealand) - Origin Energy Resources has nominated Technip Oceania Pty Ltd. as preferred contractor for the Kupe gas field offshore New Zealand.
The project involves the design, construction and commissioning of the field's offshore platform, pipeline and umbilical connecting the platform to the production station.
The contract, still subject to final investment decision by the Kupe project participants, would also have Technip Oceania supervising the horizontal directionally drilled shore crossing and the onshore infrastructure, said Origin, which is operating the project through wholly-owned subsidiary Origin Energy Resources (Kupe) Ltd.
Technip Oceania, which is based in Western Australia and Malaysia, was declared preferred tenderer last month.
Origin Executive General Manager for Major Development Projects, Andrew Stock, said the alliance would provide enormous advantages in using the same contractor to undertake work on the onshore and offshore project components.
"This arrangement will assist the identification and realization of synergies between the work programs for each component of the project, resulting in cost and logistic efficiencies. It will ultimately lead to a more effective project execution."
"We believe having the project owners and the lead contractor working as one team, with shared objectives and shared risk/reward arrangements, is the best way of managing the currently challenging and competitive oil and gas construction market," he said in a statement.
The Kupe project participants are: Origin Energy Resources (Kupe) Ltd. 50% (operator); Genesis Energy 31%; New Zealand Oil & Gas Ltd. 15%; and Mitsui E&P New Zealand Ltd. 4%.
05/15/06
