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Upstream International Oil & Gas Newspaper – December 2007

Players line up for BHP’s Macedon job
BHP Billiton is weighing up at least three bids for a pre-feasibility engineering study on its Macedon gas field development off Western Australia. Macedon is a sizeable project comprising offshore production, a subsea pipeline of at least 100 kilometres length to shore, and onshore gas processing near Onslow, said sources.

A host platform is likely to be located in shallower waters of about 50 to 70 metres, with flowlines running down to production wells in deeper water, although the field could also be produced with an all-subsea system, said sources.

Offers for the pre-feasibility study, or pre-front end engineering and design, were submitted about six weeks ago by various oil and gas contractors including Clough, Intec Engineering, Technip, Wood Group subsidiaries JP Kenny and Mustang, WorleyParsons and other players too, said sources.

Some have formed alliances to complement each others skills. Sources said one such example is understood to be Clough with UK front-end specialist Xodus, which is new to Australia in 2007. Sources suggested the Clough-Xodus offering may be of interest to BHP.

Privately-owned Xodus set up a Perth office in February — its first foreign post — and has made a quick impact in the area of subsea engineering solutions competing against the likes of Intec and JP Kenny. Sources said it has hired senior, experienced people from rival companies in Australia including its local executive director Matthew Rawlings, who was most recently with Granherne in Perth.

Xodus has quietly grabbed a slice of the subsea engineering market from its two rivals. The company itself said it has been involved in Woodside’s Pluto, Angel, Browse, Sunrise and Vincent projects and carried out FEED support for Helix Energy Solutions’ floating production, storage and offloading vessel Shiraz.

It recently picked up a contract with the Woodside-led North West Shelf Venture for the ODP8 project, which involves evaluating and prioritising field development sequencing, considering integration of small Western Flank oil rims, and the venture’s infrastructure.

Xodus said: “In less than a year, we have cracked this major piece of work which could have been seen as the exclusive domain of others with a longer track record in the province.” It is not known when BHP plans to award the Macedon pre-Feed contract. Tenders for the big turnkey contracts will follow in due course.

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