Bechtel wins Gladstone LNG work

Queensland Gas Company (QGC) and UK-based BG Group have picked engineering contractor Bechtel to build the proposed Gladstone liquefied natural gas project in Queensland.

QGC and BG said in a joint statement that, under the agreement, Bechtel would start work on front-end engineering and design work for the planned 3 million to 4 million tonne per year facility, to allow a “seamless transition” into the procurement and construction phase of the project following a final investment decision expected in early 2010. The Gladstone project will initially run one compression train but will be designed to be expanded with additional trains to a capacity of 12 million tonnes per year. Bechtel has significant experience in building LNG plants, having constructed about one-third of existing LNG production capacity worldwide, the statement said. The company has previously built a facility at Darwin in Australia, and has build six trains for BG in Egypt and Trinidad & Tobago. Bechtel specializes in LNG compression using the ConocoPhillips Optimised Cascade Process, which the Gladstone partners agreed was best suited to the coalbed methane feedstock to be used in the project, the statement said. The Gladstone project will tap CBM reserves in Queensland’s Surat basin for use in Australia and export as LNG to international markets.
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