Crunch time arrives for FPSO bidders on Browse megaproject

Crunch time has arrived for the world-leading contractors pursuing the Browse gas project opportunity in Australia where two large floating production, storage and offloading vessels are required.

Browse is likely to be Australia's last megaproject. It is the country’s largest undeveloped gas condensate field with contingent resources of 14 trillion cubic feet of gas and 390 million barrels of condensate.

The development plan includes two large deepwater FPSOs, with one located on the Calliance and Brecknock fields, and the other on the Torosa discovery.

An enormous spread of subsea production equipment will feed gas and condensate to the FPSOs. From there, a 900-kilometre subsea pipeline will transport the gas to the existing North West Shelf LNG facility, while the condensate will be stored on, and sold from, the FPSOs.

Woodside and its partners in Browse have struggled for years to develop the project, and still face considerable environmental resistance, but Woodside’s recent acquisition of PetroChina’s 10.67% interest, ousting Inpex in the process, underscored its quiet confidence that Browse will materialise.

[...]

In the meantime, Woodside has completed pre-front-end engineering and design work on the FPSOs, and issued invitations to tender for the design and construction of the vessels to provide market pricing and schedule assumptions.

Three bidding groups have taken shape to compete for the two FPSOs, both of which will have production capacity of 1.1 billion cubic feet per day of gas, and be able to provide gas/liquids separation, gas processing and dehydration, condensate treatment and stabilisation, and gas export compression.

Each vessel will measure up to 360 metres in length, will have topsides weighing about 60,000 tonnes each and feature internal turret mooring systems.

The FPSOs will also have carbon capture and storage (CCS) modules that will inject carbon dioxide into the Calliance storage formation reservoir. The floaters will be newbuilds to be owned by the Browse joint venture.

Multiple sources told Upstream the three heavyweight competing groups are Aker Solutions with Samsung Heavy Industries and the turret specialist APL; KBR with HD Hyundai Heavy Industries and SBM Offshore for turret expertise; and Modec supported by its turret division Sofec.

Each group in the week ending 21 August submitted a technical offer to Woodside, and this will be followed by a commercial submission on about 18 September, the sources told Upstream.

Market sources said this is a unique opportunity given two FPSOs and turret mooring systems are required, and the contract values will be in the billions of dollars. The keys to success would likely be linked to cost and schedule.

Each of the bidding groups brings exceptional engineering and construction capability, and track records in large FPSO and mooring systems that equip them to handle the Browse facilities.

[...]

The Browse subsea production system will comprise wellheads, christmas trees, controls, manifolds and other facilities in a contract that will be worth in excess of US$1 billion, according to TechnipFMC, which has included the Browse phase one project on its list of opportunities in the next 24 months.

There will also be a very significant contract for subsea, umbilicals, risers and flowlines. Subsea 7 has estimated a potential Browse contract could be worth more than US$1 billion.

Finally, there are only a handful of companies that can handle the whopping 900-kilometre gas export pipeline, dubbed the Browse Trunkline, with sources previously suggesting Allseas and Saipem will likely be the only realistic contenders.

Link: https://www.upstreamonline.com/exclusive/crunch-time-arrives-for-fpso-bidders-on-browse-megaproject/2-1-2032515?lid=rh1w2jwoayiq&up-daily-newsletter?utm_source=newsletter&utm_campaign=2026-08-24&utm_content=up-daily-newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&utm_term=braze_epost&utm_term=braze_epost