It’s been a busy summer for GE Oil & Gas across the Asia-Pacific region. Today, the team is gathering in Singapore to map out next steps as part of their annual mid-year business review and to kick-off a tour of key customer sites across the region. We thought it would be a good time to take a look at just what Oil & Gas has been up to in recent weeks.
Deep dive: GE Oil & Gas is already well established in Malaysia and the Asia Pacific region, particularly in the offshore sector. The company has provided a range of equipment, including gas turbines, compressors, subsea equipment and repair and inspection services for offshore projects in Australia, China, Indonesia, Malaysia and Thailand.
In the heavy equipment category, GE recently inked a key deal with Petronas, Malaysia’s state-owned oil company, to supply of a range of gas turbines and compressors for projects in Malaysia and other parts of the world. In what’s called a “frame agreement,” the deal, announced in June, eliminates the need to spend time negotiating on a project-by-project basis. Equipment is also standardized to a great extent, resulting in lower engineering costs. The deal follows-up GE’s continued string of turbo-machinery wins in China, as the country uses GE’s technology to build it’s giant West-to-East gas pipeline.
* Read about the deal with Petronas
The same day the Petronas agreement was formalized, GE also struck a key services deal in Malaysia. Working with Malaysia’s leading oil and gas service provider, GE is expanding its service center for the regional oil and gas industry. Expected to be operational at the end of the year, the center will use the most advanced service and repair technologies from GE to maintain, repair and refurbish heavy industrial gas turbines and its components — which minimizes downtime and helps extend the life of the equipment. The center will continue to be operated by Malaysian Advanced Refurbishment Services, a wholly owned subsidiary of SapuraCrest Petroleum and is among the few service centers of its kind in the region.
Don’t waste a drop: While GE’s equipment is widely used offshore, the company’s technology is also of critical use on land – and under it. From 1990 to 2009, GE has inspected a whopping 20,000 miles of pipelines in the region, both liquid and gas.
The deals are critical for the region as Malaysia is an important contributor to world energy markets. Current oil reserves are estimated at approximately three billion barrels, with much of the oil production taking place offshore. Malaysia is also a significant liquefied natural gas exporter to Japan, South Korea and Taiwan and has one of the most extensive natural gas pipeline networks in Asia.
* Read about the service center deal
Also in services, last month GE signed its first deal for offshore oil and gas platform work in the Gulf of Thailand. It’s anticipated that the project, which will be carried out by GE Drilling and Production Systems, will lead to a wider involvement and participation by GE in maintaining and servicing similar projects in Thailand in the coming months and years.
The new deals this summer are in addition to the key work being performed in the region with Australia as part of the Gorgon Project, which includes the subsea development of the Greater Gorgon natural gas fields, located off the north-west coast of Australia. Last year, GE signed a 5-year agreement to supply subsea equipment and support services for the project.
And while it’s a world away from the Asia Pacific region, GE Oil & Gas has also just marked key milestones in Austria and Egypt. GE is supplying integrated compressor line technology to help extend the Penta West Gas Pipeline, a key supplier of natural gas for Austria and bordering states. With this construction, the capacity of the Penta West Gas Pipeline will be doubled.
Meanwhile, Egypt’s largest liquified natural gas project just announced its completion of the first Health and Safety Partnership Program delivered with GE. It’s the first ever such project to be delivered by GE Oil & Gas at a customer site. It’s designed to drive a ‘no injury, no accident, H&S excellence’ mantra throughout the business’ culture and operating systems.
* Learn the technical specs of the technology in the Austrian project
* View a downloadable fact sheet about GE Oil & Gas
* Read about our new offshore deals with Brazil
* View a downloadable fact sheet about our wellhead systems
* Read GE Reports’ story about our pipeline inspection technology
* Watch a video about inspecting “unpiggable” pipes
