Inpex: last topsides lifted on Ichthys LNG FPSO

Japan’s Inpex said the last topsides for the Ichthys LNG project’s floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) facility were lifted on Friday.

The lift, which occurred at the Daewoo Shipbuilding and Marine Engineering yard in Okpo, South Korea, allows further progress of pre-commissioning and commissioning activities.

Modules, pipe racks and equipment packages had now been lifted onto the hull of the FPSO, Inpex, the operator of the $37 billion project said.

The FPSO topsides lifting operations started in April 2015 and were completed in early May 2016, with the final addition of the 450-tonne water treatment package.

Once complete, the facility will be towed 5,600 nautical miles to the Ichthys Field in the Browse Basin, offshore Western Australia for offshore hook-up, commissioning, and start-up.

It will be permanently moored to the seabed about 3.5 kilometers from the project’s central processing facility (CPF) for the 40-year life of the project.

The FPSO will be used for processing and storing condensate from the CPF and periodically offloading stabilised condensate to shuttle carriers for export directly to the market, Inpex said.

The 336 by 59-metre FPSO is designed to hold more than one million barrels of condensate in its hull and will accommodate a workforce of up to 200 people.

Inpex further said the 8.9 mtpa Ichthys LNG project is on schedule for the first production during the third quarter of 2017.