Helping New Zealand meet its increasing gas needs

Interesting and challenging are two words that describe the Kupe project – the largest oil and gas project we’ve undertaken.

Mount Taranaki rises above Taranaki ,while just off the coast the Taranaki basin lies below. It’s the site of the Kupe onshore natural gas processing plant, a gas and light oilfield development that processes raw gas to power the North Island’s gas transmission system.

To help produce the gas New Zealand needs, the plant includes three wellheads, an offshore platform, a 30km pipeline to shore, an onshore production station near Hawera and oil storage facilities at New Plymouth. To get from plans to fully functioning plant, we were contracted to Technip, Origin Energy's Alliance partner, to provide civil, structural and geotechnical engineering services.

Thanks to its fast-tracked nature, the project needed a rapid construction programme. To meet the tight deadlines, we undertook detailed design well ahead of the process and mechanical design - an interesting challenge! Beca and client teams from across New Zealand, Australia and Malaysia successfully collaborated on a 3D model of the large plant with all its components to make it happen.

The plant’s unique technical requirements meant that a number of the piping and support structures needed to be prefabricated further afield being before transported to New Plymouth. In total, eight modules of prefabricated piping structures up to 30m long and weighing up to 180 tonnes each were transported to the site for final assembly.