Prochem is a privately owned Australian company with six offices, one for each capital city and employing 72 people, including mechanical and instrumentation specialists. Specializing in stainless steel piping products, high quality threaded fittings and instrumentation, Prochem has had great success in diverse markets by offering customers valves and fittings that can be used with complete confidence.

  Australia is equal in geographical size to the USA, so it is important for each office to stock and market products to its customers. Each office also has its own success story, but this edition will focus on a major account based on the west coast of Australia, Woodside Energy Ltd.

  Woodside is a leading Australian resources company and one of its most successful explorers, developers

and producers of hydrocarbon products, with a growing international reputation. The construction of its offshore platforms and onshore LNG facility in Western Australia has been the catalyst for continued growth with vendor packages purchased from around the world.

  Specifying Hoke valves and Gyrolok fittings on all projects and package equipment, Woodside supports CIRCOR domestically and internationally through their commitment to project development.

  Woodside has successfully completed the initial major development phases of the North West Shelf Project – partnered by BP Developments Australia, Chevron Asiatic, BHP, Shell Development and Japan Australia LNG (a joint venture company owned by Mitsubishi Corporation and Mitsui Ltd).

  The company is now strongly positioned to take advantage of new opportunities in the Australian domestic and overseas oil and gas markets, which means that Prochem and CIRCOR have exciting times ahead.

  Success came in the early 1970s, with the discoveries of the North Rankin, Goodwyn and Angel gas fields, some 130 kilometers off the coast of Dampier in Western Australia’s harsh Pilbara region.

  These fields were eventually to form

the basis of the North West Shelf Venture, Australia’s biggest energy resource development.

  Delivery of North West Shelf natural gas to customers in Western Australia began in 1984 under long-term contracts with the State-owned energy utility. Deregulation of the domestic gas market in Western Australia allowed Woodside to sell directly to major energy consumers.

  LNG exporting began in 1989 under 20-year contracts with eight power and gas utilities in Japan, and spot sales of LNG have also been made to Spain, South Korea, Turkey and the USA. Condensate also provides an important source of revenue.

  Woodside’s first crude oil development was based on the Wanaea and Cossack oilfields, discovered on the North West Shelf in the late 1980s. Production from the Cossack Pioneer FPSO began in November 1995 and LPG exporting began in December. In late 1999, under Woodside’s operatorship, the Northern Endeavour FPSO began producing oil from the Laminaria and Corallina oilfields in the Timor Sea northwest of Darwin.

  Woodside continues seeking opportunities to expand its North West Shelf operations and is actively seeking customer support for additional LNG processing trains on the Burrup Peninsula.