Talk to me about the nature of McDermott’s Saudi operations.
McDermott’s Saudi Offshore operations were established in 1964. Our storage business, CB&I, was established even earlier, in 1925, and our onshore operations began in 1985. Today, we stand as the premier provider of offshore EPCI services in the country. Our long history in the Kingdom gives us intimate knowledge of the offshore fields and it is something that we capitalise on. To complement our in-Kingdom engineering, project management, supply chain capability, and logistics management, we are planning to expand our footprint with the construction of our SAFIRA fabrication facility in the Eastern Province. To support our customer needs, we also have established an In-Kingdom joint venture with Zamil called SBS Oceanics to focus on brownfield offshore projects.
How has McDermott sought to support KSA’s localisation agenda?
The localisation agenda is front and centre in our operation. Hand-in-hand we go through this journey with our partners, suppliers, and customers. Our people are critical to the success of McDermott. Over the last few years, we have relocated some of our best resources to our Saudi operations to ensure a knowledge transfer and development of Saudi emerging talent. We also collaborate with local training institutes such as the Leading National Academy (LNA) for Females and the Saudi Petroleum Services Polytechnic (SPSP) as well as universities to support the integration of graduates into the workforce. We invest in local supplier development to enhance the In-Kingdom supplier base that we and other contractors benefit from.
What specific challenges do you face in your Saudi Arabian operations?
As with the entire industry, the biggest challenge remains attracting and retaining talent. We must differentiate ourselves to inspire the leaders of tomorrow and take each of them on our journey with us.
Another challenge is the recent commodity price volatility and disruption to the supply chain due to various events in the world today, such as the pandemic lockdowns and the recent events in Ukraine. We continue to work diligently with our customers to assess and mitigate those challenges to minimise the impact for ongoing and future projects.
Finally, we operate in an environment where regulatory requirements can change quickly. Our focus is on ensuring we remain flexible in the face of change and can embrace regulation change as a positive to adapt and still offer our customers a competitive and sustainable solution.
Congratulations on landing three EPCI awards by Saudi Aramco in December last year, what can we expect next on these projects?
McDermott continues its decades-long partnership with Saudi Aramco with three awards for engineering, procurement, construction, and installation (EPCI) projects. In total, McDermott is providing EPCI of four drilling jackets and seven oil production deck modules (PDMs) in Saudi Arabia’s Zuluf, Ribyan, Abu Sa’fah and Safaniya fields located offshore in the Arabian Gulf.
In addition to the seven PDMs and four drilling jackets, the scope of work for the three contract release purchase orders (CRPOs) includes EPCI of more than 45 kilometres of pipelines, more than 100 kilometres of subsea cables and tie-in works to existing facilities.
In line with our strategy, the execution of these projects is being led by the Saudi office which includes engineering, supply chain, and project management. We are capitalising on our knowledge of the various fields where the structures will be installed and leveraging our One Team approach to work closely with all project stakeholders ensuring a safe delivery.
