Saudi Aramco awards major offshore contract to J. Ray McDermott

"It's a matter of great pride for us to be associated with this mega project," said Hafez Aghili, J. Ray's senior Vice President and General Manager for the Middle East and India. "Our safe delivery of past Saudi Aramco structures won us a certificate of appreciation from our customer last December; we expect to achieve high safety and quality performance on this project as well."

The project is scheduled to start with engineering in May 2007 and fabrication of platforms having a combined weight of over 16,700MT at the Jebel Ali (United Arab Emirates) facility in September 2007. J. Ray will engineer from the regional headquarters in Jebel Ali as well as from its engineering office in Chennai, India, established last year.

The project also includes modification work scope which entails design, procurement, installation, hook-up and commissioning of communication packages on 26 existing platforms.

"We recently embarked on an ambitious development plan for our fabrication yard at Jebel Ali. The plan involves capacity expansion and deployment of additional equipment, resulting in increases in both efficiency and workable man-hours. Together with our experienced project team, we are well-prepared to successfully execute the Manifa project," said Aghili.

The project will be competed by 2011. During this four years period, J. Ray's marine vessels will carry out offshore construction and hook-up of the facilities in several campaigns.