McDermott Finds Partner for Rio Grande EPC Bid

McDermott said October 29 that it plans to partner with the Italian contractor Saipem to bid for NextDecade's planned Rio Grande LNG project in Brownsville, south Texas.

"Our joint bid with Saipem will feature optimised execution strategies that result in increased certainty on schedule and cost as compared to other LNG projects on the US Gulf Coast," said David Dickson, CEO at McDermott. "Pursuant to NextDecade's competitive process, we plan to submit our joint EPC proposal in 2Q 2019."

NextDecade has said it expects to achieve a final investment decision on the project in 3Q 2019; earlier this month US regulator Ferc issued its draft environmental impact statement (EIS) for the planned 27mn metric tons/year liquefaction and export project.

NextDecade and McDermott had originally planned to sign a lump-sum turnkey EPC contract by June 2018. Instead NextDecade launched a new competitive bid process last month to select a new EPC contractor, inviting bids from Bechtel, Fluor and McDermott - with NextDecade telling McDermott that it would need to secure a joint venture partner in order to re-bid.

McDermott said it had agreed to secure a joint venture partner in order to successfully execute and financially guarantee a project of Rio Grande LNG’s size and scope.