Larsen & Toubro’s spool base to execute ONGC work

L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering, a wholly owned subsidiary of India’s Larsen & Toubro, has unveiled a high-tech spool base at L&T’s fabrication facility at the Kattupalli yard in Chennai, India.

L&T said on Friday that the facilities would be used to execute a lump-sum turnkey contract awarded by ONGC for a subsea installation by a consortium of J. Ray McDermott S.A., Berlian McDermott & L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering.

The scope of the contract includes supply and installation of a series of pipeline end terminations, in-line tee structures, a pipeline end manifold structure, rigid jumpers, and approximately 48 kilometers of umbilicals. The pipeline scope includes 103 kilometers of 14-inch dual rigid pipelines extending from the shallow water shoreline to a maximum water depth of 2,300 feet.

It is part of ONGC’s integrated development of Deep Water Vashishta and S1 fields on India’s east coast. The project involves three subsea wells in depths ranging from 400 to 700 meters with a daisy chain field architecture and a subsea tie back to an onshore terminal at Odalaveru through a dual 14″ pipeline.

Subramanian Sarma, CEO and Managing Director of L&T Hydrocarbon Engineering, said: “We are proud to be involved in this project that is being done for the first time in India. It is also for the first time that such high-end technology required for deepwater operations is being transferred and embedded in India through our consortium partners, McDermott.”

T. K. Sengupta, Director – Offshore at ONGC, said: “For our deepwater campaign, this is a very significant step because we are going towards a gas-based economy for which it was very important to prepare ourselves for future challenges.”

He also expressed confidence in the ability of the consortium to deliver such a complicated project on schedule and start production by mid-2017 and achieve full capacity of 2 billion cubic meters of gas per annum by end 2017.

The pipeline installation involves specialized welding, NDT (Non-Destructive Testing) and demands high levels of fabrication expertise to ensure the operating life of 25 years in a harsh marine environment.

L&T’s Kattupalli modular fabrication facility is located just 370 kilometers from the KG basin. The yard has over a kilometer of length – a prerequisite for installing a spool base and reeling facility for subsea pipelines. While this yard will develop as a hub for deepwater work on India’s east coast, it also supports L&T Hydrocarbon’s shallow water EPC projects.