Petrofac wins £180m contract for Malaysian offshore plant

ENERGY services firm Petrofac has won a $280 million (£182m) contract from Petronas, the Malaysian national oil company.

The deal covers the development of the Sepat offshore production system on the east coast of the Malaysian peninsular.

The first oil is expected to flow from the development by the end of next year.

Petrofac - which won the contract following a competitive tendering process - will undertake the engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning (EPCIC).

The EPCIC includes a mobile offshore production unit (MOPU), a floating storage and offloading (FSO) facility for the production of about 20,000 barrels of oil per day and all interconnecting subsea pipelines.

Petrofac - which has a large operations base in Aberdeen and a training centre in Montrose - has already carried out similar work on phase one of the Cendor development.

Maroun Semaan, group chief operating officer at Petrofac, said: "We are delighted to have been awarded this contract by Petronas, which is our first lump-sum offshore EPCIC contract in South-east Asia.

"Petrofac has presented a fast track delivery model using existing vessels for the FSO and MOPU conversions and we should be ready for start-up by the end of 2011.

"Our ongoing partnership on the Cendor field development project in the region continues to flourish, and we look forward to delivering for Petronas on this project as well."

Local partners supporting Petrofac on the project include Kencana, which will add all the processing equipment to the MOPU, and BumiArmada which will supply and install the FSO.

Shares in London-listed Petrofac closed up 17p or 1.1 per cent at 1,601p.