By Wendella Davidson

ITALIAN oil and gas contractor, Saipem, will be ramping-up operations offshore Guyana over the next three months as preparatory work gets underway ahead of the arrival of the Liza Destiny in Q3.

This includes a survey of the sea floor by the Neptune, to determine where pipes are to be laid followed by the arrival of the Saipem FDS2, the vessel that will install the more than 6,000 pieces of pipes at the Liza Field for the Phase One Development, according to a release from OilNOW.

OilNow is an online-based information and resource centre, which serves to complement the work of all stakeholders in the oil and gas sector in Guyana.

Additionally, an ultra deepwater construction DP 3 vessel, Saipem Constellation, is scheduled to arrive in Guyana later this year to connect the Liza Destiny FPSO to the subsea equipment for oil production, which is set to begin by 2020, the release noted.

“This vessel will come in with about 300 manpower onboard… which means there must be back-to-back turnover which will require about 700 people coming into Guyana and going offshore, utilising a number of services in-country,” Saipem Guyana Country Manager, Thuranthiran Nadarajah told OilNOW.

Nadarajah said while the ongoing work is in preparation for Liza Phase One, all the major activities are also being done to facilitate the second phase of the Liza development.

Saipem had, on August 21, 2018, announced that it had secured contracts for the second phase of the Liza development to the tune of US$700M .

The contracts assigned by Esso Exploration and Production Guyana Limited (EEPGL), an affiliate of ExxonMobil, as the project operator, are in addition to those awarded to Saipem in 2017 for Liza Phase One.
“The foundation work currently being undertaken actually has substantial amount of ability to do the second phase, where we will be able to do some fabrication in-country and that fabrication will lead to additional or bigger structure fabrication. So, we are planning in a very controlled and staged manner in order to have a sustainable programme where Saipem’s footprint will be in Guyana for the long-term,” the release quoted the country manager as saying.

He noted that Saipem’s ability to deliver on time is one of the key factors enabling the company to secure major contracts, such as those for the Liza development.

SAFETY

In so doing, with safety as a top priority, means utilising world-class facilities and highly skilled personnel, he added.

“Having said that, we need to see what are the infrastructure that is available in Guyana in order for us to be able to deliver the time and the work scope that is required. When we did the initial investigation, we could not find any structure or base which has got enough strength to be able to sustain heavy loads where we would be able to fabricate, for example, the jumpers or even any subsea structures which is heavy that needs to be offloaded onto a vessel where we need a strong jetty, which is not available,” Nadarajah pointed out.

It would be much more cost-effective for the company to utilise these services in-country rather than having to procure them from other locations, he added.

“That’s why we are working behind the scenes with local companies to try and build the foundation and build the infrastructure and transfer the knowledge…. For example, we need welders, we need technicians, material, equipment, we need blasting, painting, scaffolding; anything related to fabrication, we need it,” he stated.

Having these things available locally at the safety and standards required will be pivotal in seeing more services being utilised in Guyana.

“For Saipem, we don’t look at profit as the component; we look at safety as the component. We are a strong believer in doing something safe which will eventually give us the profit,” he said.

COLLABORATION

Saipem has been collaborating with the University of Guyana and is working with the Government Technical Institute (GTI) to help build capacity, and has already been able to train and employ Guyanese in this regard.

“We’ve had our welding and fabrication team in town visiting the Government Technical Institute to see their facility and to see how we can assist. We are working with some vendors to collaborate in order to bring the welders to be upgraded, to be trained to be able to be used by us for the next phase,” Nadarajah stated.

Saipem is one of the world leaders in drilling services, as well as in the engineering, procurement, construction and installation of pipelines and complex projects, onshore and offshore, in the oil and gas market.