Chevron Taps Intecsea, Technip Oceania for Wheatstone Project

Dow Jones Newswires reported Thursday that Chevron has confirmed the award of two engineering and design contracts for the upstream component of its massive Wheatstone liquefied natural gas development offshore Western Australia.

Chevron selected Intecsea Pty. Ltd. to design the gas gathering facilities and pipeline at the Wheatstone project; Technip Oceania Pty. Ltd. was tapped to design the production platform for the field.

"The front end engineering and design process is now well underway with the upstream and downstream engineers working on an integrated basis to ensure we have a well coordinated development leading up to a final investment decision in 2011," Chevron Australia Managing Director Roy Krzywosinski was quoted as saying.

Located offshore Western Australia in the Northern Carnarvon Basin, the Wheatstone gas to LNG project incorporates two area fields, Wheatstone and Iago.

Wholly owned and operated by Chevron, the Wheatstone gas field is estimated to hold 4.5 Tcf (127 Bcm) of natural gas. Chevron is also the operator of the Greater Gorgon project in the Carnarvon Basin, which will be subsea tied back to onshore LNG facilities.