The Ichthys LNG Project: big, bold and beautiful
Antoine SerceauINPEX.
The APPEA Journal 53(2) 430-430 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ12041
Published: 2013
Abstract
The Ichthys LNG Project is one of the most complex oil and gas developments attempted. It is three mega-projects in one: an onshore project, an offshore project, and a pipeline project.
The onshore project is being developed in Darwin and involves two processing trains rated to produce a total of 8.4 million tonnes of LNG per year.
Offshore, the central processing facility (CPF) will feature the world’s largest semi-submersible platform. A substantial floating, production storage and offtake (FPSO) vessel, designed to hold more than one million barrels of condensate, will be stationed nearby. Both the CPF and FPSO will be permanently moored in an area notorious for cyclonic weather conditions and will be designed to withstand even the most extreme weather conditions for more than four decades.
An 889 km subsea pipeline will link the Ichthys Field, 200 km off the Western Australian coast, to the onshore facilities in Darwin. This represents the longest subsea pipeline in the southern hemisphere and fifth longest in the world.
A final investment decision for the project was announced in January 2012. This triggered intense construction activity and created hundreds of new construction jobs in Darwin and more globally. More than 4,000 direct jobs will be created at the peak of construction. An approved capital expenditure of $US34 billion by INPEX and the Ichthys Project joint-venture participants shows a tremendous commitment to Australia.
Since the discovery of the gas-condensate field in 2000, the Ichthys road has been one of identifying and overcoming geographical, political, technical, physical, financial, and commercial challenges.
The Ichthys Project is a global effort, drawing on worldwide expertise to overcome these challenges and work towards first gas in late 2016.
Antoine Serceau has been working in the oil and gas industry for more than 25 years, specialising in the project management of pipeline, platform, and onshore plant construction. For most of his career, he has been with French company Total E&P, most recently as senior vice president, projects construction within Total E&P technology and operations division. In 2010, he was seconded from Total E&P to INPEX as managing director in charge of the large-scale Ichthys LNG Project, a joint venture between INPEX group companies (the operator), major partner TOTAL group companies, and the Australian subsidiaries of Tokyo Gas, Osaka Gas, Chubu Electric Power, and Toho Gas. He is undertaking the critical role of progressing the Ichthys project through construction. Construction started in early 2012 following the final investment decision made by the joint ventures on 13 January 2012. In 1980, he joined Elf (later part of Total) as an engineer in the E&P division’s congo projects group. He then held various engineering management positions on major projects in Norway, Gabon, and the Netherlands. He posted to Elf’s E&P centre in Pau (France) as projects department manager, followed by a move back to Norway as Froy project director. From 1997 to 2002, he was project director for the Girassol deep offshore development project in Angola. |
