L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering Ltd., a wholly owned subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro, has unveiled high-tech spool base facilities at L&T’s fabrication facility at Kattupalli, in Chennai. These facilities are being employed to execute a prestigious Lump Sum Turn Key contract that was awarded by ONGC for a subsea installation by a consortium of J. Ray Mc Dermott, Berlian McDermott & L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering Ltd.
The contract is part of ONGC’s integrated development of Deep Water Vashishta & S1 fields on India’s east coast. It is their first project, involving three subsea wells in depths ranging from 400-700m involving a daisy chain field architecture with subsea tie back to onshore terminal at Odalaveru through a dual 14in pipeline.
“[This project is] the first time that such high-end technology required for deepwater operations is being transferred and embedded in India through our consortium partners, McDermott,” said Subramanian Sarma, CEO and managing director, L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering. “Apart from seeking more sustainable deployment of this high-end technology, a very positive fallout of this project is the degree of local skill development which augurs very well for the future.”
Commenting on the occasion Arunabha Sen, country manager, McDermott Inc., said that these were early steps and that they were looking at a long-term association with the consortium.
“For our deepwater campaign, this is a very significant step because we are going towards a gas-based economy for which it was very important to prepare ourselves to the future challenges,” said T K Sengupta, director – offshore, ONGC. He expressed confidence in the ability of the consortium to deliver such a complicated project on schedule and commence production by mid-2017 and achieve full capacity of 2 Bcm/yr by end 2017.
This approximate 91km of pipeline laying from onshore terminal to offshore deepwater field involves 55km of shallow water lay and 36km of deepwater lay using the spool lay method. The pipeline installation involves specialized welding, NDT (Non-destructive Testing) and demands the highest levels of fabrication expertise to ensure operating life of 25 years in a harsh marine environment. This is a landmark project in line with the ‘Make in India’ and ‘Skill India’ policies of the Government with technology transfer from McDermott.”
L&T’s modular fabrication facility at Kattupalli near Chennai is located just 200 nautical miles from the KG basin. The yard has over a kilometer of length – a prerequisite for installing a spool base and reeling facility for sub-sea pipelines. While this yard will develop as a hub for deepwater work on India’s east coast, it also supports L&T Hydrocarbon’s shallow water EPC (engineering, procurement, and construction) projects.