Billingham company Phusion win £11.5m contract in Australia

Billingham engineering information company Phusion has won an £11.5m six-year contract that may generate new growth.

The international engineering information management specialist company has been selected to work on the INPEX-led Ichthys LNG Project in Australia.

Phusion has been appointed as Data Management Contractor for the project, dealing with enormous amounts of engineering data and delivering the information to the Ichthys Operations team.

The data management process will come from teams of experts in Phusions’ Data Factory in Billingham, Teesside.

Alex Hayward, Managing Director of Phusion said: “This contract will result in the continued growth of our operations in Billingham in the UK and Perth in Western Australia.

“The company celebrated its 20th anniversary in 2012; Phusion is a virtually unique business built on solid foundations – blending excellent engineering expertise with innovative web-hosted IT.”

The Ichthys LNG Project is a joint venture between INPEX group companies (Operator), Total group companies and other participants.

Gas from the Ichthys field, in the Browse Basin in Western Australia, will undergo processing offshore to remove water and extract condensate.

The condensate will be transferred to tankers for delivery to markets, the gas will be exported to onshore processing facilities in Darwin via an 889km subsea pipeline.

The Ichthys LNG project is expected to produce 8.4 million tonnes of LNG and 1.6 million tonnes of LPG per annum, along with approximately 100,000 barrels of condensate per day at peak.

Phusion, previously known as Pearson-Harper, will lead the work from its offices in Perth, with experts in Billingham carrying out data management.

Mike Moroney, INPEX Information Management Team Leader said: “Collecting and managing information from suppliers is notoriously difficult to get right on major projects.

“For the Ichthys LNG Project, INPEX is targeting a data completion of 95 per cent, compared to an industry norm of around 40 per cent.

“Our philosophy at INPEX is that sophisticated tools and data methods do not compensate for lack of basic data content.

“Overall we are adopting an uncompromising approach with our contractors and suppliers to ensure that we can deliver an integrated information management system with a single point of access.”

Phusion staffl will operate as part of the INPEX team collecting, validating and assembling data in line with agreed standards.

They will liaise with INPEX’s appointed Integrity and Maintenance Contractor and other companies involved in supplying Ichthys, including Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) and EPC contractors.

Underpinning this work will be Phusion’s vast library of generic OEM engineering data – widely regarded as the largest such data bank in the world - which the company has developed over the last 20 years.

Documents will be delivered as they are produced and design tools delivered monthly, this will mean that operational staff can access data quickly and may also reduce the handover costs.

The deal will expand Phusion’s growing portfolio in Australia where the company is already working on the Chevron Gorgon project.

Steve Pearson, Executive Chairman of Phusion, said: “We are delighted to be announcing this contract for the Ichthys LNG Project.

“It brings the current value of our workload in Australia to more than £20m over the next three years.

“We are very proud to becoming recognised around the world as a leader in engineering information management.”