BPTT head clarifies McDermott’s Cassia C contract

BPTT’s award of a detailed engineering and long lead procurement contract to McDermott for its Cassia C compression platform – located off Trinidad’s southeast coast – does not mean the project has been sanctioned.

The clarification comes from BPTT Regional President Norman Christie, during his March 9 exit interview with Newsday – effective April 1, Christie will become joint head of the BP Group’s CEO’s Office in London.

“Cassia C is not sanctioned. I saw the article in the Newsday (this week) and I think some people interpreted that (McDermott’s announcement) as a post-sanction award because I got calls from people going, ‘How did this happen?’”

“Even though the McDermott headline is very clear – ‘McDermott Awarded Detailed Engineering and Long Lead Procurement for the BP Cassia C Compression Platform’ – we had to explain that this is what you do before sanction. So it’s important to clarify that what we’re doing here is still getting all of the things you get together to make a sanction decision, which won’t occur until much later this year.”

Reiterating that a decision has not yet been made, Christie explained that approval of Cassia C requires having certain things in place beforehand.

“You have to of course done some engineering. You have to look to items that you think, if you sanction it, you’ll want make sure that you have them on order – that’s the long lead stuff. Another important point is that before sanction, you have to make a decision about location of fabrication.”

While the fabrication contract has also not been decided yet, Christie reminded that BPTT has “stated our bias and intent – we would love to get fabrication back (to Trinidad). Not at all costs, obviously but we would love to get it back and what we’re investing our efforts in right now, is to get the environment in La Brea, with all of the stakeholders, right so that when we’re making the sanction decision, we can then be clear, where fabrication is going.

The country will obviously be very involved in that decision,” Christie told Newsday.