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Wojciech Zmudzinski, chief pipeline engineer for McDermott (right) with an INPEX Ichthys Project representative during a valve manufacturing inspection at a factory in Italy. (Photo: Business Wire) |
McDermott International is ready to move forward with its new forged body specialty valve designed exclusively for the INPEX-operated Ichthys LNG project.
Creating the valves for the mega-project was a two year development process, which McDermott embarked on with an unnamed valve manufacturer.
“The Ichthys project umbilical, riser and flowline infrastructure – which will be installed at the Ichthys Field offshore Western Australia - requires connection of the subsea riser base to the 42in. gas export pipeline going to the onshore LNG processing facility,” says Jonathan Parkes, McDermott senior project director. “This meant that six 42in. valves had to be specially designed and fabricated to meet the 40-year design criteria. To our knowledge, these are the world’s largest, single-piece forged, top entry ball valves.”
Each of the six valves is approximately 9m in length, 7m high and weighs more than 100-tonne. The first valve has been built and tested, while the second valve is undergoing factory acceptance testing and should be ready in September. Once all of the valves have passed testing, two will be installed offshore in 270m of water. The remaining four will be installed onshore, one at the landfall block valve and three at the processing facility at Bladin Point.
In February, the INPEX-operated Ichthys LNG Project celebrated a milestone for its floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility. The first block of the keel was in the Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME) shipyard in Okpo, South Korea, where the FPSO was being constructed.
After completion, the facility was towed 5600km to the Ichthys field in the Browse basin, offshore Western Australia, permanently moored to the seabed for the life of the project.
Earlier this month, McDermott Australia awarded Neptune Marine Services two subcontracts for the Ichthys LNG Project. McDermott was appointed as the main contractor for the subsea umbilicals, risers and flowlines engineering, procurement, construction and installation portion of the project.
The initial subcontract included the design and fabrication of specialist scour protection systems and the secondary scope entails the grouting of the riser support structure and grouting of the SPS.
The Ichthys LNG project is scheduled to start production by the end of 2016. It will have an initial capacity to produce 8.4mtpa of LNG, 1.6mtpa of liquefied petroleum gas, as well as approximately 100,000b/d of condensate at peak.
Inpex operates the Ichthys project with 66.7% interest. Its partners include Total (30%), Tokyo Gas (1.575%), Osaka Gas (1.2%), Chubu Electric Power (0.35%), and Toho Gas (0.42%).
Read more:
Neptune bags Ichthys contracts
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