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ShawCor Wins $40M Subsea Coating Job

Monday, January 3, 2011

Bredero Shaw, the pipe coating division of ShawCor Ltd., has received a $40+ million contract to provide subsea insulation coatings for Chevron’s ultra-deepwater Jack/St. Malo oilfield project in the Gulf of Mexico.

The subsea flowlines and risers will be installed about 250 miles (400 km) southwest of New Orleans in water depths up to 7,200 feet (2,200 meters).

Coating Facility Upgrade

The work will be executed at the Bredero Shaw pipe coating facility in Beaumont, TX. The site is being upgraded with the addition of a new Brigden modular coating facility capable of applying FBE and multi-layer anti-corrosion systems, as well as Thermotite syntactic polypropylene, solid and foam polypropylene and Thermotite ULTRA subsea thermal insulation systems.

This contract includes ID blasting and coating of approximately 92 km of 10-inch pipe with a three-layer polypropylene anticorrosion coating and syntactic polypropylene thermal insulation.

Qualification activities will begin during the first quarter of 2011, with full production planned from the third quarter of 2011 through the second quarter of 2012.

‘A Huge Resource’

The Jack/St. Malo project will be the first by Chevron North America Exploration and Production Co. in the Lower Tertiary trend in the deepwater U.S. Gulf of Mexico. The Jack and St. Malo fields are located within 25 miles (40 km) of each other.

"The Lower Tertiary is recognized as a huge resource with the potential for long-life projects of up to 30 to 40 years and the opportunity to enhance recoveries through technology," said George Kirkland, vice chairman, Chevron Corp.

$7.5B Investment, 500 MMboe

The initial development of the project will require an investment of approximately $7.5 billion. It will be comprised of three subsea centers tied back to a hub production facility with a capacity of 170,000 barrels of oil and 42.5 million cubic feet of natural gas per day. Startup is anticipated in 2014.

Discovered in July 2004 by the Discoverer Deep Seas drillship, the Jack oil field is located on Walker Ridge Blocks 758 and 759 in the Gulf of Mexico.

Two wells on the site have been drilled to a total depth of 28,175 and 29,000 feet, and Chevron anticipates that the field will be one of the largest in the Gulf of Mexico. The field is currently rated the fifth-largest in deepwater Gulf of Mexico with nearly 500 Million Barrels of Oil Equivalent (MMboe).

About Bredero Shaw

ShawCor Ltd. is an energy services company specializing in products and services for the pipeline and pipe services and the petrochemical and industrial segments of the oil and gas industry. The company operates through seven divisions with more than 70 manufacturing and service facilities worldwide.

Pipe coating giant Bredero Shaw, ShawCor's largest division, employs about 4,000 permanent and contract personnel in 15 countries. The division provides specialized coating systems and related services for corrosion protection, insulation and weight coating applications on land and marine pipelines, including highly engineered corrosion and insulation systems for deepwater applications.