The Geraldton-headquartered firm started off servicing the Mid-West mineral sands sector before jumping on the iron ore bandwagon in the 2000s, then saw the growing opportunities in Darwin when Inpex made final investment decision on the $US34 billion Ichthys LNG project.
Maicon opened up a fabrication and machining workshop in November 2014 at East Arm Port, where Shell's $29 million onshore supply base is located to support its Prelude floating LNG project.
Shell's warehousing facility will provide equipment and parts to the offshore processing plant, which will operate in waters 475km north-east of Broome in Western Australia.
There's yet more work for the taking for Maicon, with more evolving around ConocoPhillips' intentions for Darwin LNG, with the offshore regulator kicking off a public consultation process earlier this month for the development of the Barossa and Caldita fields in the Timor Sea.
Construction has also started on the Northern Territory end of Jemena's $A800 million NGP, for which Maicon is eyeing the production modules for the pump stations.
Maicon co-owner Brad Crook, who has been with the company since 2003, told Energy News that he originally set up shop in Darwin to diversify away from the company's bread and butter in WA.
Until recently Maicon's oil and gas work had mainly comprised fabrication and construction of structural steel items for the Ichthys project.
Technip Oceania handing the company the onshore and offshore spool fabrication contract for Shell's Prelude floating LNG project was its first "big" score since its bold step-out into the Top End.
It was vindication for Crook and his team which had done "a lot of leg work" to break into the oil and gas sector in a more substantial way, by endeavouring to understand operators' requirements.
"We decided it was possibly easier to establish a base in Darwin because we're regionally base than in the Perth market which is quite crowded," he said.
Crook said smaller-scale companies were more attractive to major operators due to their ability to produce faster turn-around times and execute a wider range of work - "anything from supplying things where they don't have accounts, being an intermediary in a lot of those situations".
