SembCorp gets Bergesen job

Sembawang Shipyard, a wholly-owned subsidiary of SembCorp Marine, has secured a S$88 million ($53.4 million) contract from Bergesen Worldwide Offshore to convert the VLCC ?BW Enterprise? to an FPSO.

Bergesen Worldwide Offshore, a company within the Bergesen Worldwide Group, will own and operate the FPSO in the Gulf of Mexico under a 15-year term agreement with Pemex, a Mexican state-owned oil and gas company. This is the first FPSO to be deployed in the Gulf of Mexico and will serve as a hub in the area and act as an export terminal. Sembawang Shipyard was awarded this important contract on the strength of its capabilities and established track record in the highly specialised and sophisticated field of FPSO offshore conversion and modification work.

The contract scope calls for the 1981 built 360,700 dwt tanker to be converted into an

FPSO with 600,000 bpd handling inclusive of 200,000 bpd processing capacity with gas export capability. The shipyard will carry out detailed engineering, procurement of bulk materials, vessel?s repair and conversion, installation of topside modules and the internal turret as well as precommissioning work. Major conversion and upgrading work include the coating of all tanks slop and ballast tanks, installation of various systems and equipment such as a new and modified cargo system, submerged pumps in tanks and a new ringmain fire water system. The accommodation will also be upgraded and refurbished to house a complement of 110 persons. The shipyard will install all the pre-assembled topside modules including the process plant with capacity of 200,000 bpd oil, gas compression module with capacity of 120MMSCFD and a flare system.

Upon completion, the FPSO will have the third largest oil production capacity of the existing FPSO units in the world as well as having the largest throughput of oil of any FPSO unit.