Ichthys Project update
Louis BonINPEX.
The APPEA Journal 54(2) 477-477 https://doi.org/10.1071/AJ13050
Published: 2014
Abstract
The US$34 billion Ichthys LNG Project is one of the most complex oil and gas developments attempted.
It is effectively three mega-projects in one: an onshore project, an offshore project and a pipeline project.
The Ichthys Project represents:
the largest semi-submersible platform in the world;
the first semi-submersible production platform in Australia;
the largest Japanese investment outside Japan;
the largest single French investment in Australia;
the biggest ever project financing;
the longest subsea pipeline in the southern hemisphere; and,
the second largest resource Project in Australia, by CAPEX.
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 a year. Offshore, construction of the central processing facility (CPF) and floating, production storage and off-take (FPSO) vessel is underway. Both facilities will be permanently moored and are designed to withstand the most extreme weather conditions for more than four decades. An 889-km pipeline will link the Ichthys Field, 200 km off the Western Australian coast to the onshore facilities in Darwin. The project’s final investment decision was announced in January 2012. This triggered intense construction activity and created hundreds of new construction jobs in Darwin and more globally. Since the discovery of the gas-condensate field in 2000, the Ichthys journey has been one of identifying and overcoming geographical, political, technical, financial and commercial challenges. The project is a global effort, drawing on worldwide expertise to overcome these challenges and work towards first gas in late 2016.
Louis Bon graduated from the Ecole des Mines de Paris in 1979. He joined Total as a young engineer in 1980, in the operations division, and went through his first expatriations in Norway (1982–1984), in the United Kingdom (1985–1989) and in Abu Dhabi (1990–1991). He moved to projects in 1991, on the Qatargas development, relocated for two years as a resident in Japan and then on the Bongkot phase III development in Thailand. In 1998, he became deputy to the South Pars phases II et III project director (Iran), a major project that includes production platforms and a huge onshore gas processing plant; that was the first development in Iran since the revolution. After the start up of the facilities in 2002, he was assigned as technical director for Asia and Far East, dealing with Total activities in Indonesia, Thailand, Brunei and Myanmar, under the senior Vice President for the area. In 2005, he took the position of Total projects and construction division deputy director, in charge of supervision, methodology and staff management for all Total upstream projects. In November 2008, he became Pazflor project director, a major deep offshore development on Total’s Bloc 17 in Angola, a project with high technological content, which successfully started up one month ahead of schedule in August 2011. In February 2012, he was assigned as Vice President of Total E&P Operations at corporate level, overlooking Total’s field operations, drilling, logistics and procurement activities worldwide. In September 2013, Louis joined the Ichthys Project as the Managing Director, on Secondment from Total E&P, based in Perth. |
