Crondall Energy announces the award of a contract with a consortium of Aker Solutions and Subsea 7 for the Ophir Energy Fortuna Project in West Africa.

The award is to provide technical support to the competitive Upstream Front End Engineering Design (FEED) and includes all aspects of the subsea design, the company wrote.

Earlier this year Ophir Energy awarded Upstream FEED to two contractor consortia, (i) McDermott Marine Construction and GE Oil & Gas UK and (ii) Subsea 7 and Aker Solutions.

The Upstream FEED will be a competitive process that will enable the two competing FEED consortia to submit their EPCIC (Engineer, Procure, Construct, Install & Commission) tenders at the end of FEED, from which one will be selected for FID.

The FEED process will be completed at the end of 1Q 2016, which will allow a Final Investment Decision to be made in mid-2016 with first gas expected in mid-2019, Ophir noted.

“This contract extends Crondall Energy’s involvement with the Fortuna Project, which has previously included early field development concept work and conceptual engineering of both the subsea and FLNG facilities. Our ongoing involvement with this project highlights Crondall Energy’s unique capability in both subsea and floating systems engineering,” Crondall Energy said.

The Fortuna Project is located in Block R in Equatorial Guinea. It is expected to produce 2.2mtpa and Ophir currently has an 80% working interest.