From Australia: The INPEX-operated Ichthys (32/22) LNG Project reached a key milestone this week when it completed the installation of 140 km of rigid subsea flowlines.

The final infield pipelay marked a significant achievement for the project’s offshore installation campaign at the Ichthys Field in the Browse Basin, located about 220 km offshore Western Australia.

The infield flowlines were installed in a water depth of up to 275 m to carry reservoir fluids from 20 subsea wells to the project’s two massive floating processing facilities—a central processing facility and floating production storage and offloading facility.

All flowlines were installed with in-line structures, weighing up to 220 tonnes, requiring more than 11,000 onshore and offshore flowline welds to be executed.

Ichthys Project Managing Director Louis Bon said the safe completion of the complex subsea network was a major accomplishment. “This achievement has marked the end of a 16-month offshore campaign to install 47 km of 6-in. and 8-in. monoethylene glycol flowlines, 7 km of 12-in. transfer condensate flowlines and 85 km of 18-in. production flowlines.”

In addition to the infield flowlines, the Ichthys LNG Project offshore installation campaign has completed installation of 49 foundation piles, five production manifolds and a 6,500-tonne riser support structure.

Earlier this month, the project team marked another significant achievement, having successfully pressure tested the offshore component of the 42-in. gas export pipeline.

DLV 2000 on the way

McDermott International’s new derrick lay vessel, the DLV 2000, has won work on Ichthys.

The DLV 2000 is a class 3 dynamically positioned vessel combining a 2,200-ton revolving crane with a deepwater S-lay pipelay system configured to install pipelines with diameters ranging from 4.5 in. to 60 in. in water depths up to 3,000 m.

The vessel can accommodate up to 400 personnel to facilitate hookup and commissioning projects and incorporates a 13,000-sq m open deck to allow the transportation and assembly of large subsea structures.

The DLV 2000 is expected to join the project as part of McDermott’s 2016 current project schedule by installing large subsea spools, laying infield umbilicals and lifting several subsea distribution units that will provide the hydraulic, chemical and electrical distribution from the umbilicals to the subsea drill centres.