Chevron Australia has awarded Western Australian company ICON Engineering a $5.5 million contract to build a Compensated Tension Lift Frame (CTLF) for use during the upcoming drilling and completion programme for the Gorgon Project.
The CTLF is designed to provide heave compensation during completion operations and will be used aboard the newbuild Atwood Osprey semi-submersible drilling rig.
The award of the fabrication contract follows ICON’s successful completion of the design phase last year.
The design phase also involved the successful bench testing of ICON’s unique “safe link system”, the control valves and hydraulic system which are the brains of the CTLF.
The safe link system is designed such that heave compensation can be instantly switched from the rig’s active system to the passive CTLF compensation mode.
“ICON’s track record in equipment development allowed a customised solution to be developed in close collaboration with Chevron,” ICON Managing Director David Field said.
“This is great news for a local company given equipment of this nature is typically sourced from overseas.
The award goes to show local engineers and suppliers have the capability to develop some equipment solutions for some very challenging applications.”
The unit will be assembled in Perth with many key components sourced locally from a network of mostly Australian suppliers.
ICON Engineering is an independent oilfield services and engineering company founded in 1997 with offices in Perth, Western Australia, and Singapore with approximately 45 employees.
ICON is well known for its expertise in installing offshore platforms by jackup rigs and designing customised oilfield equipment in support of drilling and offshore construction operations.
The Gorgon Project is operated by an Australian subsidiary of Chevron and is a joint venture of the Australian subsidiaries of Chevron (approximately 47 percent), ExxonMobil (25 percent) and Shell (25 percent), Osaka Gas (1.25 percent), Tokyo Gas (one percent) and Chubu Electric Power (0.417 percent).
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Source: ICON Engineering, February 2, 2011;