Video: Engineering feat in McDermott FPU floatover at Scarborough

Australia

PERTH, May 14, 2025 – McDermott has completed the fabrication, construction and offshore floatover of the topside and hull structures of the Scarborough floating production unit for Woodside Energy, the company said on Tuesday.

The EPCIC contract for the Scarborough Energy Project, awarded in 2021, followed McDermott’s front-end engineering design work and includes engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning services.

The project involved the design and construction of an approximately 30,000-tonne topside and a 37,000-tonne hull structure, the largest floating production facility in McDermott’s history and one of the largest semi-submersible production platforms ever built.

Fabrication of the topsides was carried out at McDermott’s joint-venture yard Qingdao McDermott Wuchuan in Qingdao, China, while the hull was built by COSCO in Qidong.

The topsides feature six deck levels, 169 core equipment units including three gas turbine-driven export gas compressors, three generators with waste heat recovery systems, over 50,000 metres of piping, one million metres of cabling and 568 integrated subsystems, along with a battery energy storage system to reduce operational emissions.

Earlier this month, both structures were transported and the topsides were installed via floatover off the coast of Dalian. The unit has now arrived at CIMC’s Raffles yard in Yantai for final integration and is expected to sail to the Scarborough gasfield off Western Australia, 375 kilometres from the Burrup Peninsula.

“Completing the floatover operation marks a critical milestone and reflects our team’s relentless commitment to execution excellence and safety,” McDermott executive vice-president Tareq Kawash said.

The Scarborough field is located about 375 kilometres off the Pilbara coast of Western Australia. Production is projected to reach about 8 million tonnes per year, with the first LNG cargoes expected out in 2026.

McDermott is a global engineering and construction company providing integrated solutions to the energy sector. Operating in more than 54 countries, it employs over 30,000 staff and offers services from concept to commissioning, including marine construction, fabrication, and technology-based solutions for energy infrastructure projects.

Photo and video courtesy of McDermott