Engineering company McDermott International and Baker Hughes, a GE company, have been contracted by BP for its Tortue/Ahmeyim field development on the maritime border of Mauritania and Senegal that will include an FLNG facility.

The engineering duo has been selected for the front-end engineering design (FEED) studies in advance of a substantial engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contract, McDermott said in a statement.

During this initial engineering phase, McDermott will work on defining the subsea umbilicals, risers and flowlines (SURF) scope for the project, while BHGE will focus on the subsea production system (SPS) scope. The FEED is scheduled to begin and complete this year.

The agreement contains a mechanism to allow the transition of the contract to a lump sum EPCI contract at a later date.

The initial subsea infrastructure will connect the first four wells consolidated through production pipelines leading to a floating production, storage, and offloading (FPSO) vessel. From there liquids are removed and the export gas is transported via a pipeline to the floating liquid natural gas (FLNG) hub terminal.

The Tortue/Ahmeyim field development is located in the C-8 block off the shore of Mauritania and the Saint-Louis Profond block offshore Senegal.

The Tortue discovery was made by Kosmos Energy, which farmed down its investment to BP in December 2016. BP now has the largest interest (60 percent) among the four partners in the project and is the operator.