Woodside contracts for major Australian oil field evolving

Securing a deal to help develop an oil field offshore Australia that's the target of a $1.9 billion investment shows wins are still available, Technip said.

The French energy services company said it secured a contract worth at least $275 million to help Australia's Woodside develop its offshore Greater Enfield project, where waters are as deep as a half mile.

From its operating center in Perth, Australia, and support from its Asian offices, Technip said it will assist with the managing, engineering and installation of some of the subsea pipeline infrastructure at Greater Enfield.

"We are very pleased to have been awarded this large contract by Woodside in this competitive business environment," Arnaud Pieton, president of Technip's operations in the Asia Pacific region, said in a statement.

Woodside said last month that "breakthroughs" in technology slated for the Greater Enfield projects off the coast of Western Australia made investing nearly $2 billion during the weak market for oil justifiable. The investment plan for Enfield came in at the low end of its expectations, which gave the company an opportunity to develop "previously stranded resources."

Woodside already awarded more than $300 million in contracts for the upstream side of the energy sector to Schlumberger subsidiary OneSubsea to help develop the Greater Enfield project.

The Australian company is targeting a basin that holds up to 69 million barrels of oil equivalent, which will be developed using an offshore floating production, storage and offloading vessel.

First oil is expected from Enfield by the middle of 2019.