The newly-built MMA Brewster is set to work with the MMA Plover and both have been named for reservoirs that contain hydrocarbons off northern Australia.

 

MMA won the support contracts in 2014 and needed to build the vessels to meet Inpex's strict specifications.

 

The MMA Plover was officially named at a ceremony held in Australia last August.

 

The pair will supply the central processing facility and floating production, storage and offloading vessel from bases in Darwin and Broome, in the Northern Territory and Western Australia respectively.

 

The FPSO, named the Ichthys Venturer, and the CPF, named the Ichthys Explorer, were given their titles at a lavish ceremony at the Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering shipyard in South Korea in February.

 

At 130m by 120m, the Ichthys Explorer is the world's largest semi-submersible platform. It will receive well fluids from a subsea gas gathering system, located at a water depth of 250m.

 

Most liquids will be transferred from the Ichthys Explorer to the 336m-long Ichthys Venturer for offshore processing and condensate offloading.

 

Ichthys field is located some 220km off the northern coast of WA and is expected to start producing before the end of the year, with operator Inpex telling Energy News last week that the development is still tracking for a September quarter start, despite comments from major partner Total that the start of production could be delayed.

 

The project has suffered a number of setbacks since it was sanctioned in 2012, including major contractor Laing O'Rourke last month due to a pay dispute.

 

The project is expected to produce 8.9 million tonnes of LNG and 1.6MMtpa of LPG per year, along with more than 100,000 barrels of condensate per day at peak. 

 

Gas and condensate from the Ichthys field will be exported to onshore facilities for processing near Darwin via a massive 889km pipeline.

 

Most condensate will be directly shipped to global markets from an FPSO facility permanently moored near the Ichthys field in the Browse Basin.

 

The project is a joint venture between Inpex and Total with Taiwan's CPC Corporation and the Australian subsidiaries of Tokyo Gas, Osaka Gas, Kansai Electric, Chubu Electric Power and Toho Gas each holding minority interests.

 

Field life is expected to be 40 years.