Saipem Pens $150M Coral FLNG Maintenance Deal

Italian oilfield contractor Saipem has won a contract for maintenance services on the Coral Sul FLNG floating facility offshore Mozambique.

The contract was awarded by Coral FLNG S.A., a special purpose entity incorporated in Mozambique by Area 4 Partners – Eni as the delegated operator and ExxonMobil, CNPC, GALP, KOGAS, and ENH as the remaining partners.

Saipem said that the contract was worth $150 million with a duration of around 9 years, plus one optional year. The activities cover maintenance of the entire FLNG facility and onboard supervision as well as the creation of an onshore logistical base.

“The award of this new service contract confirms Saipem’s presence in the liquefied natural gas segment, within the scope of the diversification of the project portfolio and strengthens its positioning in a strategic country such as Mozambique,” Saipem stated.

As for the Coral Sul, it is the first floating LNG facility ever deployed in the deep waters of the African continent.

Coral South Project achieved a final investment decision in 2017. The construction of the FLNG hull and topside modules started in September 2019. Worth noting, BP signed a long-term deal to buy all the LNG produced by the unit.

The Coral Sul FLNG vessel was named on November 15, 2021, and left the Geoje Samsung Heavy Industries shipyard in South Korea the following day. The FLNG vessel arrived in Mozambique in the Rovuma Basin on January 3, 2022. The process of anchoring, surveys, inspections and certifications is underway to meet the schedule for the planned start of production in the second half of 2022.

The Coral Sul FLNG plant is 1,400 feet long, 215 feet wide, weighs about 220,000 tons, and can liquefy 3.4 million tons of natural gas per year.

It will produce gas from the Coral offshore gas field in the Rovuma basin off the coast of the northern province of Cabo Delgado. The field has approximately 16 trillion cubic feet of gas in place. Italian oil and gas firm Eni, the operator of the project, made the discovery back in 2012.

The installation campaign is supposed to be done in a water depth of 6,500 feet. Coral Sul FLNG will be moored with 20 mooring lines with a total weight of 9,000 tons.

In recent news involving Saipem, it was awarded new offshore drilling contracts in the Middle East and West Africa for a total amount of over $400 million.

Saipem said that the two contracts were awarded in the Middle East for two high specification jack-up drilling units, consisting of drilling and workover operations for five years.

The start of operations is scheduled for the fourth quarter of 2022. These projects will involve one Saipem jack-up unit and a new high specification jack-up chartered from CIMC.

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