SapKen said in a stock market announcement that SKGE would provide Petronas with complete maintenance services for its fleet of 12 gas turbines and its fleet of GE compressors, generators and electric motors to be installed on its floating LNG vessels.
“These maintenance activities will be fully executed by the joint venture’s growing pool of local qualified field service engineers and diagnostic experts,” it said.
SapKen was upbeat on the emerging trend, with Petronas' floating LNG vessels at the forefront, of smaller, more flexible plants which allow for more efficient extraction from remote fields without the capital expenditure of a traditional LNG facility.
The first of Petronas' two vessels, PFLNG SATU, will be deployed on the Kanowit field offshore Sarawak and will add about 1.2mtpa of LNG production to Malaysia’s LNG exports.
SapKen president and group ceo Shahril Shamsuddin said the Malaysia-based repair and maintenance centre was one of the most cost-competitive within the entire GE Oil & Gas repair network.
GE Oil & Gas general manager for Asia-Pacific, Visal Leng, added that this was the first contract of its kind in the world for a long-term maintenance agreement on an FLNG vessel.
Separately, Petronas has confirmed it will be delaying its second floating liquefied natural gas project PFLNG2 to 2020 from 2018.
Vice president & venture director for LNG projects (domestic) Abdullah Karim was quoted in media reports as saying that the decision was taken as a part of the wider group’s plans to rationalise certain projects.
“As you would have read in the news, that we had to rationalise to control ... this is one area we believe we can carry this out to control cashflows,” Abdullah said.
Abdullah and vice president for global LNG projects Adnan Zainol also announced that its first vessel FLNG1 would be setting sail for its location 200 km offshore Sarawak in May.
Hook-up operations will commence and first production is expected in the third quarter of 2016. "We hope to send out the first cargo out of the facility towards the end of the year,” Adnan said.
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