A unit of Australian firm GR Engineering has secured a contract to provide operations and maintenance support services for the Inpex-operated Ichthys LNG project.
GR Production Services, previously known as Upstream Production Solutions, won the three-year contract for the Ichthys LNG upstream and downstream facilities from Inpex Operations Australia, a unit of Japan’s Inpex.
According to a statement by GR Engineering, the contract has a price tag of A$28 million and includes two three-year extension options.
The scope of work involves providing production and technical roles to Inpex as required to supplement their business, and support for maintenance shutdown planning and execution on all facilities, it said.
GR Engineering added that work on this project is expected to start on December 1, 2023.
Record number of LNG cargoes
Inpex has shipped 96 LNG cargoes from its Ichthys plant during the January-September period of this year, 16 cargoes more compared to the same period last year.
The Ichthys project also sent 17 plant condensate cargoes, 22 offshore condensate cargoes, and 25 LPG cargoes during the first nine months of this year.
The facility at Bladin Point near Darwin has two trains and a nameplate capacity of 8.9 mtpa but it is expected to reach a production of about 9.3 mtpa this year due to debottlenecking.
Earlier this year, the Japanese firm said that it plans to ship record 132 cargoes of LNG, or 11 per month, from the Ichthys plant in 2023.
Inpex also sent this year the 500th cargo of LNG from its Ichthys terminal since the start of operations in 2018.
Ichthys LNG is a joint venture between operator Inpex and major partner TotalEnergies.
Also, other partners include Australian units of CPC, Tokyo Gas, Osaka Gas, Kansai Electric Power, Jera, and Toho Gas.
Natural gas arrives to the LNG plant at Bladin Point from the giant Ichthys field offshore Western Australia via an 890 kilometers long export pipeline.