Nippon Steel Engineering Co. has won a large-scale, long-term contract for a new phase of an offshore natural gas development project from a Thai state-run company.

The Tokyo-based firm will construct about 40 wellhead platforms and lay around 280 kilometers of pipeline in the Gulf of Thailand over five years under the 100 billion yen ($910 million) deal signed between its local unit, Thai Nippon Steel Engineering & Construction Corp., and PTT Exploration and Production Public Co.

It will be the third phase of the bundled project in the gulf for Nippon Steel Engineering, which had undertaken the five-year scheme from 2011 and is engaged in the ongoing segment scheduled to be completed this year.

The Thai subsidiary will carry out designing, procurement and construction of locally built wellhead platforms as well as reconstruction of existing platforms, Nippon Steel Engineering said.

The parent company, for its part, will be engaged in ocean transport and offshore installation of platforms while designing, procuring and installing pipelines, it said.

The Nippon Steel Engineering group has built and installed about 230 wellhead platforms and subsea pipelines spanning 2,300 km in the Gulf of Thailand in the series of projects it has been involved in since the 1970s.

Not only the track record but the group's extensive efforts to improve productivity contributed to reaching the latest deal, Nippon Steel Engineering said, referring notably to the self-development of a cutting-edge automatic welder that has helped speed up the subsea pipeline laying process. (NNA/Kyodo)

==Kyodo

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