Bechtel awards John Holland the Wheatstone Village Construction Contract

This week,John Holland announced it had secured a key contract with Bechtel Australia Pty Ltd to design and construct the accommodation village for Chevron’s Wheatstone gas project near Onslow on Western Australia’s Pilbara coast.

With a contract value of approximately $370 million, the 3,800-bed village is one of the first major contracts to be awarded for Wheatstone. Work on the village will begin immediately and is due for completion in the second quarter of 2014.

In addition to the accommodation units, the village will include recreation centres, football oval, swimming pool, tennis courts, medical centre and dining facilities.

The project will generate hundreds of local employment opportunities, while a range of strategies will also be implemented to maximise the number of apprentices and trainees and to provide employment and economic opportunities for Indigenous people.  In addition to project, structural and civil engineers, construction of this type is likely to demand formworkers, carpenters, electricians, plumbers and those with building related trades and experience.

Wheatstone is a joint venture project with Chevron 73.6 per cent, Apache 13 per cent, Kuwait Foreign Petroleum Co (KUFPEC) 7 per cent, Shell Australia 6.4 per cent.

Located about 250 kilometres off the coast of Onslow, north-west Western Australia, gas from the field will be pumped via subsea pipelines to the onshore processing facility just north of the town of Onslow.

Up to 3,500 jobs and 3,000 indirect jobs will be created during the construction phase of approximately six years.

A permanent workforce of 300 will operate the rigs and plant.

It is expected that the project will generate a revenue stream of some $20 billion over the 20-year life of the project.  Chevron has also committed to spend $17 billion on Australian goods and services over the life of the project.

A number of work packages have already been awarded: 

• The Upstream work scope for detailed engineering and construction of the platform has been awarded to Daewoo Shipbuilding & Marine Engineering (DSME).  DSME is one of the world's largest shipyards, producing various vessels and off shore platforms for the global oil and gas industry.  DSME will design, construct, transport and install the processing platform, which will be located in 72 metres of water, about 200km north of Onslow and about 145km from the nearest mainland shore. The platform will have a steel gravity structure and topsides will be designed for conventional float through/float over deck installation.  This work will be undertaken in Korea.
• Design of the subsea component is being conducted by Intecsea, part of the Worley Parsons group, with all of that work being done in Perth.
• The Wheatstone Platform design is being done by Technip, with a significant portion of this work being undertaken in Perth.
• The gas plant design and engineering is being done by engineering, procurement and construction contractor Bechtel.  Bechtel will continue to award additional contractors for segments of construction as they have done with John Holland.

Bechtel currently has a number of roles advertised for a range of major projects:  http://www.theresourcechannel.com.au/job-board?keys=bechtel&location=All&discipline=All&industry=All&level=All&class=Any&posted=All&quicksearch=true