McDermott International said it has signed a contract with Woodside Energy to undertake a front-end engineering and design activities for a floating production unit (FPU) for the Scarborough field gas development in Western Australia.

Upon completion, the contract includes the option to progress to an engineering, procurement, construction and installation (EPCI) contract should the project be approved for full development by Woodside and its Scarborough joint venture partners, McDermott said in a statement.

The FPU processes natural gas, which includes gas separation, dehydration and compression as well as Mono Ethylene Glycol (MEG) regeneration and water handling.

The topside will be designed for a production capacity of 7-9 metric tons per annum and will be placed on a semi-submersible hull in 2,952 feet (900 meters) water depth. The FPU will be remotely operated and minimally manned.

The Scarborough gas field is located approximately 236 miles (380 kilometers) off the Burrup Peninsula in the Northwestern Shelf of Australia and contains 7.3 trillion cubic feet of natural gas reserves.

The development covers 12 daisy-chained subsea wells to be tied back to a semisubmersible FPU located at the Scarborough field, with onshore processing on the Burrup Peninsula.