A joint venture between Chiyoda, CB&I and Saipem is in pole position to land the front-end engineering and design contract for a liquefaction plant in Queensland, Australia.
Arrow LNG owners Shell and PetroChina invited four groups to bid for the LNG FEED late last year. Rivals included US-Australian pair Foster Wheeler with WorleyParsons, French-Japanese-Australian squad Technip, JGC and Clough, and a US-Chinese-Australian consortium of KBR, China Huanqiu Contracting & Engineering Corporation, Leighton and John Holland.
Sources said Foster Wheeler and WorleyParsons were ruled out, as was the Technip-JGC-Clough group. The contest between the two remaining contenders is officially still alive but sources said Chiyoda, CB&I and Saipem are poised for success.
The winner will be responsible for designing the LNG plant, and a decision on a construction contractor will be determined at a later stage.
The plant will comprise two LNG trains on Curtis Island with combined capacity of between 6 million and 8 million tonnes per annum.
A final investment decision is expected in the second half of 2012. Commissioning is targeted to take place between 2015 and 2017.
