Could you give me an idea of the offshore projects you have worked on in the region and the current ones you are working on?
Our experience in the region is widespread – we have worked here for more than 60 years and have delivered a huge amount of the region’s offshore infrastructure. This year has kicked off positively; we have been able to announce several contract awards and we are looking at the busiest year in the history of our business in the region.
Currently, we have 14 active projects, across Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the Neutral Zone (the fields between Kuwait and Saudi Arabia that are jointly operated). Our biggest project is the Long-Term Agreement II (LTA II) scope of work that, when announced in 2015, was our biggest single award in the region.
This year, we’ve also signed two memorandas of understanding (MoUs) with Saudi Aramco, our largest customer – one to build a new yard in the maritime facility in Ras Al Khair, and one outlining our commitments to their In-Kingdom Total Value Add (IKTVA) programme. These MoUs signal our continued commitment to the kingdom and its 2030 vision.
Name some of your major clients in the regional oil and gas industry for which you have worked on offshore projects?
Most of our clients are NOCs, for example Saudi Aramco, ADNOC, Qatar Petroleum, and Kuwait Oil Company. We have very strong relationships with all our clients, both because of the length of time we have worked with them, and because they know they can rely on us to deliver on time and on budget.
Explain McDermott’s portfolio of services for the offshore oil and gas segment. What is your core strength in this area?
The hallmarks of McDermott are safety, quality, and innovation. Our customers are looking for certainty and on-time delivery, and our history of safely delivering the region’s most challenging projects over the past 60 years, on time and to expectations, is what makes us stand out. The other factors that differentiate us are our people and our ability to innovate – we have some of the very best people in the industry, with extensive experience in all aspects of the engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) industry and we always find the best solution for our customers.
Which of the projects that you’ve worked on in the region do you think aptly demonstrates McDermott’s expertise in the offshore segment?
One project we’re particularly proud of is the installation in 2012 of the world’s longest 230kV subsea composite cable (power and fibre) at 46km, in the world’s largest offshore oil field, Safaniya.
The project posed a significant challenge – we needed to install the cable as a single piece without a field splice from onshore. To complicate things further, the cable route had to pass through 15km of water less than 5m deep, and we couldn’t obtain a vessel to execute the cable lay in such shallow water.
To address this, we had to be creative. In this instance, we actually ended up designing and building a shallow-water cable lay barge specifically for the project. The cable was then transpooled from our cable lay vessel, NO102, to this purpose-built shallow-water barge 15km from shore and both vessels then laid the cable by moving in separate directions.
Although the vessel was initially built specifically for this one project, we found that this was actually a huge pain point for many of our clients and it has since been one of our busiest vessels. In fact, we’ve obtained a patent for this cable laying method. To me, this is a perfect example of the tenacity, creativity, and commitment to finding the best possible solution that makes us McDermott.
What is your opinion of the dominant trend of adopting digitalisation in the offshore sector? To what extent has McDermott adopted digitalisation in order to perform offshore work?
There is no doubt the future is digital, and we have a unique opportunity with the creation of a new full-scale fabrication yard in Saudi Arabia to implement cutting-edge technology and digital solutions, ensuring it is a world-leading facility.
To that end, we are putting a huge amount of time and effort into identifying new technologies and understanding what role they play in our future business – it is one of our key strategic focusses.
In our engineering function in particular, we are looking at some exciting new ways forward, including the implementation of the ‘digital twin’ concept to create a data-centric offering that will enable owners and operators to unlock the power of the 3D model, integrated engineering tools, Big Data analytics, and project management, all from a single platform. This is a first-of-its-kind industry solution that will mean we can deliver customised project management from concept to decommissioning for energy projects.
We also recently sent a large team of people to Messe in Hannover, which is the world’s leading industrial show covering everything from Industry 4.0 and predictive maintenance, to digital twinning, and we’ve been hosting workshops with some of the leading experts in this area to look at the opportunities around automation and digitisation. There’s a lot of activity happening, and there are some really exciting ideas coming out of it that we’ll be looking to move forwards with in the future.
It is widely acknowledged that the offshore segment, being cost-intensive, has taken a harder blow from the decline in oil prices, in comparison to the onshore sector. In the light of this, how do you see the offshore oil and gas sector performing, globally and regionally? What do you think lies ahead for the segment in the foreseeable future?
This is going to be our busiest year yet in the region, so our outlook is very positive. Regional NOCs are taking advantage of the competitive market and investing; this creates a healthy bid pipeline. There are also opportunities coming up in markets where we have been less active in recent times, such as the Caspian and Kuwait, and we are keen to increase our presence in both.
We have also been awarded several contracts over the past few years. One that we are particularly happy about is RasGas FAXP, which comprises the engineering, procurement, construction and installation of a flow assurance and looping project consisting of 122km of six- and eight-inch pipelines and topside modifications offshore Qatar.
In the Caspian, we are focussing on our re-entry into Azerbaijan. McDermott was a very big player in the Caspian in the early days and, although we never left, we’re planning to have a much bigger presence going forward. It’s such an important market and something we are very keen to be more involved in.
