BP’s troubled Greater Tortue Ahmeyim (GTA) liquefied natural gas project offshore Senegal and Mauritania has been hit by a major new obstacle, with McDermott International, the prime subsea contractor, set to “pause” work as part of a long-running contractual dispute.

Unless the two sides can settle this falling out or McDermott returns to GTA at a later date, the UK supermajor may need to find a replacement contractor to complete the installation of a 40-kilometre pipeline between GTA’s subsea wells and its floating production, storage and offloading vessel.