The 188m-long vessel is scheduled to begin laying the 164km shallow water component of the 882km pipeline to the Ichthys field in the next few weeks.

The pipeline will deliver gas and some condensate from the Ichthys offshore central processing facility to the onshore facilities at Bladin Point near Darwin for further processing, with 18km of the shallow pipeline to run through Darwin Harbour itself.

Semac 1 will work from east to west in the Harbour, feeding the pipe to the project's landfall site for a 3km shore-pull, enabling it to connect the offshore component to the onshore component, which will run about 7km from the beach valve at Middle Arm to Bladin Point.

About 11 support vessels will be working 24 hours per day alongside Semac 1, with helicopters used to transfer personnel to the vessel.

The Darwin Harbour element of the work will take about four weeks, with the total pipe laying expected to take around 80 days.

Semac 1 will then transfer duties to Saipem's deep water installation vessel Castorone, which will lay the remaining 718km of pipe to the field.

Saipem is the engineering, procurement, construction and installation contractor for the project, winning the pipeline contract back in January, 2012.