Aberdeen-headquartered Sparrows, which has a base at Kewdale in Perth's eastern suburbs, made aggressive plans during the fourtieth anniversary of its entry into the oil and gas patch in 2015 to treble its Asia Pacific business over the next five years.

 

While Malaysia has been a big focus, yesterday it secured a three-year contract to support activities across the state-of-the-art Ichthys onshore LNG facility at Bladin Point, the offshore processing facility Ichthys Explorer and the Ichthys Venturer floating production storage and offloading vessel.

 

The value of the three-year contract with two one-year options was not disclosed

 

The scope encompasses maintenance, servicing and inspection of lifting equipment and cranes; the supply of lifting equipment, spare parts and materials; and technical and engineering support.

 

Sparrows CEO Stewart Mitchell said the contract built on a very positive first quarter in which it has secured a number of contracts for high-profile, large-scale projects in the onshore, offshore and renewables sectors globally.

 

"The Ichthys LNG project incorporates some of the world's biggest and most advanced offshore facilities off the Western Australian coast and massive onshore processing facilities in the Northern Territory. We are extremely proud to be awarded this work," he said.

 

Located about 220km offshore WA, the Ichthys field represents the country's largest discovery of hydrocarbon liquids in more than 40 years, but getting it into production could yet prove an issue as contract disputes have dogged the project.

 

The Ichthys project is currently in construction, though lead contractor JKC has been looking for a new power contractor after CIMIC's decision in January to stop work on a power plant being built by a joint venture of UGL and US firm CH2M Hill.

 

Then earlier this month more than 800 workers were demobilised following a pay dispute between Laing O'Rourke and Kawasaki Heavy Industries over the construction of four cryogenic tanks.

 

When it eventually goes online, which Inpex still expects to be in the third quarter, Ichthys is expected to produce 8.9 million tonnes of LNG and 1.6MMtpa of LPG, in addition to more than 100,000 barrels of condensate per day at peak.

 

Sparrows announced last month that it had secured a five-year deal with Maersk Oil for the supply of hydraulic, lifting and rigging services in the North Sea. 

 

It has also won the contract to provide services for ScottishPower's East Anglia ONE offshore wind farm, announced a three-year deal to provide crane management services at Cairn Energy's Kraken field, East of Sheltand; and renewed a mechanical handling and crane management pact with BP for an initial five years.