Kellogg Brown Root News

Pieridae Energy moved closer to building a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal on Canada's East Coast after taking ownership of fields from Royal Dutch Shell which will feed gas into the plant, the company said.The Goldboro LNG terminal would be the first on Canada's East Coast and compete with the growing number of plants on the U.S. Gulf Coast, hoping its shorter distance to Europe and further west will help sell its LNG by cutting shipping costs.Pieridae said in a statement late on Thursday it had closed a C$190 million ($145 million) acquisition of Shell's gas assets in Alberta's Foothills region, giving it most of the gas…

Canadian energy company has negotiated extensions of the key deadlines under its 20-year agreement with German energy trader Uniper.These include expected commercial deliveries of  LNG gas to Uniper to start between November 30, 2024 and May 31, 2025, and the extension of the deadline to make a positive financial investment decision (FID) for the company’s proposed Goldboro LNG facility to September 30, 2020.The 20-year agreement with Uniper is for half the liquefied natural gas produced at Goldboro or 5 mmtpa (million tonnes per annum).“These extensions allow us to complete the work needed to make a final investment decision for the Goldboro Project,” said Pieridae CEO Alfred Sorensen.

In working on what is claimed to be the largest and most complex offshore conversion project undertaken to date in Brazil, the conversion of the FPSO P-48 (formerly the VLCC Stena Concordia), FELS Setal SA, the Brazilian subsidiary of Singapore’s Keppel Offshore & Marine, has achieved five million work hours without a Lost time Incident. US-based Kellogg Brown & Root’s subsidiary Halliburton Produtos Ltda awarded FELS Setal the contract for the marine conversion of the FPSO in February 2001. When completed P-48 will have an oil processing capacity of 150,000 bbl per day, and will be deployed with Petrobras in the Caratinga filed in the Campos Basin, offshore Brazil.

What About Cuba? Political allegiance notwithstanding, continuing unrest and war in the energy critical Middle East continues to wreak havoc with world oil prices, with consumers around the world struggling to keep up with fast escalating gasoline prices. While (at press time) the benchmark prices for a barrel of crude have settled just under $40, the situation has spurred new exploration and production ventures, one such speculation in the Gulf of Mexico off of Cuba. According to a recent report in The Economist (June 5, 2004 edition, page 48), Spain's Repsol has moved into position a Deep Water drilling rig off of the country's northwest coast with the intention of drilling two wildcat wells in what could amount to a successful attempt to energize a failing economy.

Keppel FELS Limited (KFELS), the offshore arm of the Keppel Group, through its subsidiary in Brazil, FELS Setal SA, has signed two contracts worth a total of $104 million. These jobs bring FELS Setal’s total contracts secured to $250 million since its incorporation 18 months ago. The first job clinched is the $90 million contract for three Anchor Handling Tugs / Supply vessels (AHTS) for Delba Maritima, a Brazilian offshore vessel operator. This follows the Letter of Intent recently announced on October 30, 2001. In February 2001, Halliburton awarded FELS Setal a $75 million contract for the marine conversion of VLCC Stena Concordia to an FPSO to be renamed P-48.For the building of the AHTS…

The newly converted FPSO P-43 has been delivered by Brazil’s Maua Jurong Shipyard to state-owned oil company Petrobras for operation in the Campos Basin. The Halliburton subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root was responsible for the conversion of this former VLCC. The Maua Jurong Shipyard is currently in the middle of converting another VLCC into an FPSO for Petrobras - P-50 arrived from Singapore’s Jurong Shipyard last month and is undergoing topsides integration and commissioning work in Brasil before entering service in the Albacora Leste field in the Campos Basin in 2006. The same yard is also converting the 272,631dwt tanker Barao de Maua into the FPSO P-54 for Petrobras.

A Rolls-Royce and Kellogg Brown & Root (KBR) team has signed a contract with the Australian Department of Defense worth more than $39m. The contract covers four Royal Australian Navy amphibious and afloat support ships for seven years with options for a further five. The Rolls-Royce and KBR team will reduce DoD ship costs through improved logistics management, total ship maintenance, faster response to day-to-day engineering issues and managing equipment obsolescence. Pat Marolda, Rolls-Royce President – Naval, said: “The Rolls-Royce and KBR team look forward to creating an effective partnership with the Department of Defence. Rolls-Royce is committed to providing long-term support to navies worldwide…