Machinemonitor, a subsidiary of the MM Group of companies, has secured a three-year contract with four years of extension options to supply the full scope of high-voltage elecatrical testing services for INPEX Ichthys – ranked as one of the most significant oil and gas projects in the world.
MM Group will provide the full suite of electrical testing services across all major assets in the project – the FPSO (Floating, Storage, Production and Offloading) vessel, CPF (Central Processing Facility) and Onshore LNG (Liquefied natural gas) facilities. MM Group will help INPEX to ensure the reliability of thousands of critical assets including generators, high voltage cables, switchgear, transformers and motors. MM Group will also provide the cloud-based asset management information systems RiskMonitor and TxAnalyser to provide a holistic view of overall plant health.
The electrical testing scope of work includes a range of high-voltage tests such as partial discharge and tan delta tests across motors, generators, cables and switchgear as well as transformer oil analysis and thermography surveys on static equipment. MM Group will also provide repair management services as well as engineering consulting services and training. A baseline health assessment will be conducted across all assets during the commissioning phase followed by the implementation of a comprehensive and ongoing condition monitoring program manage the reliability of electrical assets as the plant transitions into the operational phase. Electrical asset reliability is paramount, with the cost of unexpected downtime running into millions of dollars each day.
The Ichthys LNG Project is currently nearing the end of construction, with an estimated construction cost of USD$34 billion and an operational life of 40 years. Located offshore Western Australia and 820 kilometres southwest of Darwin, the project currently employs around 7,500 construction workers and will produce 8.9 million tonnes of LNG gas per annum.
To indicate the sheer scale of this megaproject, INPEX Ichthys has the capacity to generate around the same amount of power as the rest of the entire Northern Territory combined.
MM Group will provide engineers and technicians from offices in Darwin and Perth and will draw on additional expertise when required from the broader Australasian office footprint in Newcastle, Brisbane, Melbourne and New Zealand.