BW Offshore has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for an LNG FPSO being lined up for Noble Energy’s deepwater Tamar gas field in the eastern Mediterranean Sea offshore Israel.

The floating production specialist is already carrying out a paid FEED (Front End Engineering and Design) study for the same operator’s ultra-deepwater Leviathan gas field also offshore Israel. An award for the 1.6 Bcf/d Leviathan LNG FPSO is expected in the third quarter of this year, while a Final Investment Decision on the Tamar facility (known as the King LNG FPSO) could also be made before the end of 2013.

BW Offshore’s CEO, Carl K. Arnet, said in the company’s latest results presentation that the King LNG FPSO was a new project for which it had just signed the MoU with the client, Pangea LNG. The latter is an Amsterdam-headquartered LNG specialist joint venture between South Korea’s Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME), NextDecade and D&H Solutions.

Arnet said that BW has been asked to perform the role of “owner’s engineer” on behalf of Pangea. “And we’ve also asked to take a role in operations, should this field be developed with an FLNG unit. We may also, as an option, get into the ownership, should it be developed. We are very upbeat about this new activity area for the company,” he added.

Pangea’s wholly-owned subsidiary Levant LNG Holdings is carrying out a FEED for the Tamar operator Noble on the King LNG FPSO, which if it gets FID will be located approximately 60 miles offshore Israel. The pre-FEED study for the King FPSO was carried out by KBR Oil and Gas.

The facility will consist of a permanently moored self-contained natural gas liquefaction vessel with process equipment on deck and LNG storage in the hull. It will export 3.4 MM tonnes per year of LNG from both the Tamar and the nearby Dalit fields in the Levantine basin. The Tamar field has estimated reserves of more than 9 Tcf, and first gas to the King LNG FPSO is pencilled in for 2018. A first phase development of Tamar is due onstream in April, via the world’s longest subsea tieback (93 miles) in 1,678 m (5,505 ft) of water to a shallow water platform.

A Gazprom subsidiary has also just signed a Heads of Agreement with Pangea for the sale of the LNG from the Tamar LNG FPSO facility. Pangea says the execution of this deal will be a breakthrough for the LNG industry, representing what will become the first-ever sales agreement from a FLNG project to a third-party independent buyer without the involvement of a major IOC. The execution of the HOA is a major step underpinning the project’s financial feasibility, and will create the world’s first project-financed FLNG export facility, it said.

On the paid FEED for the Leviathan FPSO, BW’s Arnet said that it would be a large gas FPSO “like our Joko Tole gas FPSO, just larger”. The BW Joko Tole facility is currently producing offshore Indonesia.

BW is up against SBM Offshore and Modec in the ongoing bid battle for the phase one Leviathan facility, which will handle mostly dry gas. The 17 Tcf field sits in 1,300 m (4,265 ft) of water, and will export its gas to shore via two pipelines.

Another deepwater floating LNG facility is also being considered by Noble in a second phase for Leviathan, while it is also likely to opt for an LNG FPSO for its 5-8 Tcf Cyprus-A discovery offshore neighbouring Cyprus.

Offshore