Oslo-listed Subsea 7 has partnered with Schlumberger subsidiary OneSubsea to land an integrated subsea contract for Ophir Energy’s Fortuna floating liquefied natural gas project off Equatorial Guinea, writes Iain Esau.

Six months ago, a joint venture of McDermott and GE had been odds-on to win the order with a contract close to being signed.

However, it was recently learned that Ophir and its Fortuna investors, including Schlumberger, had “ripped up” this agreement in favour of placing the order with a joint venture in which Subsea 7 was involved.

Subsea 7’s original partner to handle the Fortuna work was Aker Solutions.

Upstream last month was told that OneSubsea was lined up to take Aker’s place — OneSubsea has a global alliance with Subsea 7 — but was then unable to confirm the decision.

"Schlumberger is highly unlikely to take anybody else’s subsea hardware," said an informed source.

"I tend to think they would favour in-house suppliers all the time."

Known as the Subsea Integration Alliance, Subsea 7 and OneSubsea will be responsible for engineering, procurement, construction, installation and commissioning of umbilicals, risers, flowlines and a subsea production system.

The ultimate aim is to put in place the subsea hardware to deliver 440 million cubic feet per day of gas to an FLNG vessel from four wells (three on Fortuna and one on the Viscata field) in water depths averaging 1790 metres.

A final investment decision has yet to be taken but is hoped for this year once funding issues have been resolved. First gas is due to flow in 2020.

OneLNG, the Schlumberger and Golar LNG joint venture is supplying the FLNG vessel.

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Fortuna work for Subsea7 and OneSubsea