Alliance Engineering-Designed Perdido Spar Topsides are Installed in Gulf of Mexico

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HOUSTON, June 11, 2009 - Alliance Wood Group Engineering (“Alliance”), part of international energy services company John Wood Group PLC (“Wood Group”), designed the topsides of the Perdido Development facility, which was mated with its spar recently in a record single lift. Located in the Gulf of Mexico Alaminos Canyon Block 857 in 7,817 feet of water, approximately 200 miles from Houston, Perdido will become the world’s deepest offshore oil and gas drilling and production facility. It is operated by Shell on behalf of partners Chevron and BP.

Alliance provided the conceptual design, front-end engineering, detailed design, construction support and installation/commissioning support for this unique topsides deck. The 9,773 short-ton topsides and rigging — a U.S. record for the Gulf of Mexico — were lifted in place by Heerema Marine’s Thialf. Alliance continues to provide commissioning assistance.

According to Alliance President Norb Roobaert, “The Perdido topsides design was instrumental in the project’s success. The Alliance lightweight topsides design techniques were a key enabler to permit Shell to advance this project. When combined with Shell’s innovative solutions to reduce the riser load, this resulted in significant weight reduction and a significant savings in time and cost, as well as producing a safer facility.”

The design accommodates production from five subsea, direct vertical access separation caissons for this host facility. Alliance demonstrated its ingenuity and flexibility, engineering a fit-for-purpose design in close tandem with Shell to successfully develop this challenging world-class project.

Alliance has a history of successfully developing topsides for major offshore oil and gas fields, including lightweight deepwater topsides, shelf platform topsides, and FPSO topsides. Alliance is a major player in engineering and design of the world’s biggest offshore projects: Alliance’s 10 largest installed Gulf of Mexico projects are together capable of producing approximately 655,000 barrels of oil and 2 billion cubic square feet of natural gas per day – or roughly 12% of the United States’ estimated daily domestic oil production and 30% of the United States Gulf of Mexico estimated natural gas production in 2009 (source: eia.doe.gov). More information about these and other projects is available at www.alliance-engineering.com.

Two other Wood Group companies provided services for the Perdido project. Multiphase Solutions Inc. (“MSi”) supplied the Transient Engineering Simulator™ subsea simulation package, which was integrated into the Perdido operator training simulator and deployed for operator training in April at Shell’s offices in New Orleans. Deepwater Specialists Inc. (“DSI”) provided start-to-finish commissioning services.

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Alliance is an independent services provider to the domestic and international oil and gas industry. Alliance specializes in engineering, design, procurement, project management and construction management of on and offshore upstream oil and gas facilities and structures. Capabilities range from feasibility studies through complete turn-key installations. Alliance has offices in Houston and Denver. www.alliance-engineering.com

Wood Group is an international energy services company with approximately $5.2bn sales, employing approximately 28,000 people worldwide and operating in 46 countries. The Group has three businesses—Engineering & Production Facilities, Well Support, and Gas Turbine Services - providing a range of engineering, production support, maintenance management and industrial gas turbine overhaul and repair services to the oil & gas, and power generation industries worldwide. www.woodgroup.com

For Immediate Release
Contact: Bobbie Ireland
Director, Corporate Communications – Americas
Wood Group
281-828-3505
cell: 713-515-3571
bobbie.ireland@woodgroup.com

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