Australia to supply HV cables for the Wheatstone LNG Onshore Plant

Prysmian Group Australia has been awarded a contract to design, supply, install and test the 132kV cable system for Chevron’s Wheatstone Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) Onshore Plant. The company, supported by Prysmian PowerLink Singapore, signed the € 7.3M contract with Jemena Asset Management who will act as the lead subcontractor to Bechtel. Jemena will be responsible for the civil and installation scope as well as overall project management.

The Wheatstone Project is one of Australia’s largest resource projects and will include an onshore facility located at Ashburton, 12 kilometres west of Onslow in Western Australia’s remote Pilbara region.

The project will require approximately 27 km of 240mm² and 630mm² 132kV cable to be supplied from the Abbeville plant in South Carolina, USA. It will represent the first intercompany supply into Australia from this plant and illustrates a growing ability of the Prysmian Group to leverage off a global network of factories. The USA High Voltage Engineering Team played a critical role during the tender phase in assisting with system design and local presence at the Bechtel office in Houston. The project also boasts a win for the Network Components Business Unit with over 100 terminations and joints to be supplied and installed.

Preliminary design work was recently completed by Jemena/Prysmian Group in Houston under a separate contract and detailed design is currently underway as the first part of this EPC contract. Supply and site works will predominantly occur during 2014 with handover expected in late 2015 or early 2016.

The contract represents a strategic milestone for Prysmian Group Australia and Prysmian PowerLink which, together, have been rebuilding Prysmian Group’s presence in Australia’s growing HV market for the last 2 years. "In fact" said Nick McMahon, Regional Commercial Manager HV Business Oceania for Prysmian PowerLink, “the Wheatstone LNG Project was first tendered in 2010 which shows the persistence and team approach required to win such complex projects with large clients as Bechtel who is among the world’s most respected engineering, procurement and construction companies”.

When completed, the Wheatstone Project will become one of the most advanced, environmentally responsible LNG projects in the world.