Italian contractor Saipem has halted pipelaying operations at Woodside Energy’s multi-billion dollar Scarborough gas project offshore Australia after the second incident this month on its ‘flagship’ vessel Castorone.

“Woodside can confirm two separate incidents in January on a contractor vessel while it was working on the installation of the Scarborough trunkline. Neither incident resulted in any injuries to personnel and localised damage to the trunkline was sustained which will be remediated,” an operator spokesperson told Upstream.

“The safety of our teams, the environment and our assets remain the highest priority on all activities. We are continuing to support our contractor in their ongoing work on the trunkline installation.”

The second incident, which occurred early Tuesday morning, is now known to have ruptured the pipeline allowing seawater ingress — one report described it as “a gaping hole” — and has damaged the vessel itself. Workers were reportedly evacuated from the pipelay vessel Castorone although there were no reported injuries, or worse.

“Woodside teams have been working to support Saipem and ensure the wellbeing of all personnel on the vessel undertaking Scarborough trunkline installation, following the unplanned incident on 30 January,” said the Woodside spokesperson.

“The safety of our teams, the environment and our assets are always our highest priority. We are working closely with Saipem and the workforce on board to ensure safe ongoing operations and remediation work to the trunkline,” the spokesperson added, directing all further enquiries to the Italian vessel owner.

Multiple Australian sources confirmed that Tuesday’s accident, which reportedly occurred when the vessel lost control of a section of pipeline during installation, according to local daily the West Australian, was the second potentially fatal incident this month.

“After being lucky not to kill workers on the Castorone earlier in the year in a major incident which resulted in the Scarborough project pipelayer being shut down, Saipem have f***ed things up once again by flooding the pipe,” commented the Offshore Alliance (OA) union in a Facebook post.

“This is a major incident which is almost inevitably going to shut the Castorone down for an extended period.”

The OA added that ever since it and the Maritime Union of Australia (MUA) had first inspected the pipelaying vessel prior to it mobilising from Singapore, the unions had been warning Woodside about the “poor safety and maintenance culture of Saipem and the inevitable impact on their members and the project more broadly”.

Earlier incident

The earlier incident occurred on 2 January when there was a problem with the Castorone’s thrusters — part of the vessel’s DP 3 dynamic positioning system — which reportedly caused it to make an uncontrolled movement. Fortunately, there were no known injuries.

Saipem is understood to have reported both incidents to Australia’s offshore regulator Nopsema.

Upstream has approached both Saipem and Nopsema for comment.

“The Offshore Alliance has been in dispute with Saipem since the mobilisation of the Castorone pipelayer for work on the Scarborough project. Saipem have breached numerous occupational health and safety laws and regulations whilst engaged by Woodside and have clearly disregarded the safety of Offshore Alliance & MUA members,” alleged the OA.

“Woodside must take a more hands-on approach with the Castorone and undertake a complete review of Saipem’s health and safety standards and culture,” Brad Gandy, spokesman for the Offshore Alliance union, was quoted by the West Australian.

Scarborough operator Woodside last Wednesday said that the Scarborough project, which will provide feed gas to the company’s Pluto liquefied natural gas project in Western Australia, was 55% complete as of end-2023.

Subsequently, of 22 January, approximately 57 kilometres of the 433 kilometres of pipelaying had been completed.

While Saipem is contracted to install most of the Scarborough project’s pipeline infrastructure with the Castorone, the touted ‘flagship of its fleet’, US contractor McDermott will perform some work with its vessel DLV 2000 as part of a 120-day campaign that also includes decommissioning operations on Woodside’s Stybarrow and Campbell fields.