The Pohokura project is the largest petroleum development seen in Taranaki since the 1990s Maui B gas field and later oil leg developments.

Last year Ensign (formerly OD & E) won the contract to drill the three onshore production wells and one water-disposal well at Motunui and brought in its Rig 41 especially from Indonesia for the 7000m deviated onshore-offshore wells.

Ensign Rig 41 is nearing the end of its onshore-offshore drilling program and the Ensco jack-up Rig 56 is due to arrive soon to begin the offshore drilling program.

Rig 56 and the heavy-lift, pipelaying, and dive-support vessels, are all scheduled to arrive from overseas this month to spend several months working off the north Taranaki coast.

As well as the multinationals, such as Technip Group and Subsea 7, many domestic companies, mainly based in Taranaki, are busy offering a myriad of support services.

Sometimes they have been so busy that they have had to call on their out-of-Taranaki or overseas counterparts to help with the Pohokura project, while they have also managed their normal workloads.

In mid-February, the second Maui support vessel, Pacific Runner, started installing the mooring system to be used to secure the Pohokura production platform in place, while the 415-tonne jacket left Western Australia aboard a special heavy-lift vessel bound for Port Taranaki.

The six heavy anchors that make up the mooring system will be embedded in the seabed off Motunui, while the jacket will be stored at the port until ready for installation.

The 55m-high jacket structure arrived at the port aboard the heavy-lift vessel Annegret on March 1.

The A$10 million contract for the jacket was won by the Ausclad Group of Companies in conjunction with Taranaki’s Fitzroy Engineering Group Ltd (FEGL).

FEGL has now finished the topsides module, weighing about 165 tonnes, which will sit atop the jacket.

Meanwhile, the Ensco Rig 56 is due to arrive in New Zealand waters early this month aboard the semi-submersible, heavy-lift vessel, the Swan, which will moor in the sheltered waters of the Marlborough Sounds.

The Maui support vessel, Pacific Runner, and the Port Taranaki tug Tuakana are then to travel to the sounds to assist the semi-submersible Swan offload the Ensco rig. The vessels will then due to tow the rig to Taranaki where it will be positioned at the offshore Pohokura wellsite.

Once the Ensco rig positions itself at the Pohokura offshore platform site, the jacket and topside will be barged offshore, and cranes on the rig will be used to lower them into position.

The rig will then drill six production wells to complement the three deviated onshore production wells, and one water injection well, that the Ensign Rig 41 is finishing drilling from the Motunui coast.

Pohokura operator Shell Todd Oil Services awarded Ensco the offshore drilling contract earlier this year.

Technip late last year won the contract for the supply and installation of the offshore flexible pipeline, and the installation of the wellhead platform, with the company’s Perth engineering centre carrying out the contract. The pipeline and associated equipment are being manufactured at Technip facilities in Le Trait, France, and Newcastle, England.

Subsea 7 is to use its dive support vessel, Rockwater 2, under contract to Technip, to install the Pohokura platform’s moorings, risers and other associated equipment, as well as performing the necessary tie-ins with equipment on the ocean floor.

Other companies with Pohokura contracts include New Zealand’s Fletcher Construction, which won the $ NZ 90 million design-construction contract for the Motunui onshore production station, while Transfield Worley and Well’s Instrument & Electrical were among the Taranaki subcontractors.

FEGL also fabricated 17 pressure vessels and associated equipment, and installed all of this at the onshore station.

US company BJ Services, which last year won the $ US 8 million contract for the provision of coiled tubing operations for the deviated onshore Pohokura production wells.

While the specialist tapered tubing was made in the US, using French steel, BJ Services’ New Plymouth office designed its specifications and the ancillary equipment used to mount the 53-tonne spool that housed the 7800m of cable, and to guide the cable into position for insertion into the onshore gas wells.

The first shipment of 7800m of coil tubing arrived at Port Taranaki late last year and a “duplicate back-up” set arrived in late February.

BJ Services New Plymouth project manager Steve Gill said his company liked to use local firms and local labour as much as possible, but this operation was definitely outside the scope of Taranaki expertise as only two companies in the world made the specialist tubing.

Port Taranaki was also the port of entry for the ancillary equipment, which was manufactured in Auckland by George Grant Engineering Ltd and shipped to New Plymouth.

Gill also said his company would have expected one of the Taranaki engineering shops to have picked this ancillary equipment contract up, but they seemed too busy with other projects right now.

New Plymouth-based Vause Oil Production Services was a subcontractor for that job.

The port also recently saw one of the largest importations of specially designed and constructed power transformers to supply electricity to the onshore Pohokura production station.

Two 40-tonne transformers were made by the Singaporean section of global automation and electrical engineering giant ABB Group, although the New Plymouth division of ABB managed the project.

New Zealand’s Steel & Tube Piping Systems – part of the Wellington-headquartered Steel & Tube Group – won a NZ$5 contract sourcing and supplying about 400 tonnes of specialist pipe and fittings for the Pohokura project.

That contract involved the importation of ordinary stainless steel pipe, higher-graded duplex stainless steel and carbon steel product for the onshore production station.

The pipe will go from the onshore station, through a cased hole, under a coastal cliff and near-shore reef, to join the flexible undersea pipeline to the platform.

The lengths of pipe were manufactured in Japan, shipped to Malaysia for a special coating and then sent to Taranaki.

The Pohokura contract was Steel & Tube Piping Systems’ largest since the original Maui A platform and field development of the late 1970s, and the Maui B platform and oil leg developments some 20 years later.

The project is scheduled to be completed during the third quarter of this year for the Pohokura partners – Shell New Zealand (48% equity), OMV (26%) and Todd Energy (26%).