Bechtel completes construction of Curtis Island LNG programme

Bechtel has completed construction of the Curtis Island LNG programme, with Australia Pacific LNG starting sustained production from Train 2 of its facility.

The project took six years to complete, and with the completion Bechtel has now delivered all six liquefied natural gas (LNG) production trains to three customers, namely QGC, Santos GLNG and Australia Pacific LNG in Curtis Island, off the shore of Queensland, Australia.

The three developed facilities possess a combined capacity to provide 25 million tonnes per annum of LNG, equal to almost 8% of global production.

Bechtel’s oil, gas and chemicals business unit president Alasdair Cathcart said: “Completion of the unprecedented scale of engineering and construction work on Curtis Island in Australia is a historic achievement for Bechtel, the largest greenfield programme we delivered since the company was founded in 1898.”

Almost 30,000 people were associated with the design and construction of this project from seven countries.

The programme directly hired employees for construction on Curtis Island and modularisation of crucial plant components in Bechtel-operated yards in Indonesia, the Philippines and Thailand.

Bechtel also started other sustainability initiatives including environment protection by rehabilitating 65 acres of land with indigenous seeds and recycling waste.

Bechtel is responsible for developing nearly a third of the world’s gas liquefaction capacity under construction, including the Chevron-operated Wheatstone LNG project in Western Australia, and the first LNG export facility in the US in more than 40 years, Cheniere’s Sabine Pass Liquefaction project.