Japan’s Inpex Corp. has reported a milestone in its Ichthys-operated project with the arrival of the Semac-1 submersible pipelay barge to the Northern Territory, signalling an important new phase in the project’s construction.

The 188m barge will commence work on the 889 km gas export pipeline, one of the longest subsea pipelines in the planet, from Bladin Point to the Ichthys Field in the Browse Basin, off Western Australia.

Louis Bon, managing director of the Ichthys LNG project, said that the SEMAC-1 was scheduled to start the 164 km, shallow water pipelay component of the GEP installation in the coming weeks, including laying the first 18 km section of the 42-inch diameter pipe through Darwin Harbour Middle Arm.

“The gas export pipeline will deliver gas and some condensate from our offshore central processing facility to the Ichthys LNG Project onshore facilities at Bladin Point near Darwin so that it can be processed for export,” Bon said.

“The shallow water pipelay work means we are starting to physically connect our home base in Darwin to the Ichthys Field where our semisubmersible offshore facilities will be permanently moored for the life of the project.”

The SEMAC-1 will first feed pipe to the project’s landfall site for a 3 km shore-pull, enabling connection of the offshore component of the pipeline to the onshore component. This will stretch about 7 km from the beach valve at Middle Arm to the Bladin Point onshore processing facilities.

The SEMAC-1 is planned to be in Darwin Harbour for about four weeks and the shallow water pipelay installation is expected to take about 80 days.

The barge will then hand over to Saipem’s deep-water installation vessel, Castorone, which will lay the rest of the 718 km of pipe to the Ichthys Field.

“In line with Inpex requirements, Saipem has put in place stringent safety and environmental procedures. They are committed to working safely with commercial and recreational harbour users,” Bon said

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