Eni has awarded McDermott a subsea contract valued between $500m and $750m for the fast-tracked Cronos gas development offshore Cyprus, adding another major offshore project to the contractor's orderbook.

The Houston-based contractor will deliver project management, engineering, procurement and installation support for the deepwater development. McDermott classifies the award as "substantial", a category it defines as contracts worth between $500m and $750m. The deal also marks the company's first subsea project award from Eni.

The work will draw on McDermott's subsea and floating facilities teams in Houston, Perth, London and Kuala Lumpur, along with its marine construction fleet. When announcing the award, the contractor specifically highlighted its ultra-deepwater construction vessel Amazon, although it did not detail the vessel's deployment schedule or the specific offshore installation scope.

The contract follows final investment approval for Cronos in late July, moving one of the eastern Mediterranean's most closely watched gas projects firmly into the execution phase. The region has attracted growing international interest since Eni's giant Zohr discovery off Egypt in 2015, with Israel's Leviathan and Tamar fields already exporting to Egypt and Jordan, and Europe's shift away from Russian pipeline gas since 2022 increasing demand for eastern Mediterranean LNG supplies.

Eni and its 50:50 partner TotalEnergies are developing the field in Block 6, located around 185 km southwest of Cyprus. Cronos holds more than 3trn cubic feet of gas initially in place and will be developed with four subsea production wells. First gas is targeted for 2028.

Production is expected to plateau at around 500m standard cubic feet per day, equivalent to roughly 2.8m tonnes per annum of LNG. Rather than building a standalone Cypriot processing and export chain — an approach that has contributed to long delays for the Aphrodite field in Cyprus's Block 12, discovered in 2011 but still not developed — the partners are tying Cronos into existing infrastructure across the maritime border in Egypt. Gas will be transported to Eni's existing Zohr facilities for processing before moving on to the Damietta LNG plant for liquefaction and export, principally to Europe. This structure is central to Eni's push to bring the field onstream quickly while avoiding much of the cost associated with an entirely new processing system.

The development represents a milestone for both Eni and Cyprus. Cronos will be Eni's first producing development in the country and Cyprus's first hydrocarbon project to reach production. Eni and TotalEnergies signed the key host-government agreement with Cyprus and Egypt in February last year, establishing the framework for routing the gas through Egyptian infrastructure.

Cronos was discovered in 2022 and appraised with the Cronos-2 well in early 2024. Testing of the appraisal well indicated potential production of more than 150m standard cubic feet per day from a single well, helping underpin the decision to pursue a fast-track development. Block 6 also contains the earlier Calypso discovery and Zeus, found in 2022, giving the partners potential follow-on resources if the first phase performs as expected.

Other major packages have been moving into place around the development. Westwood Energy has reported that China Merchants Heavy Industry secured the floating control unit contract, while Baker Hughes has been identified as the frontrunner for the subsea production system. Neither award has been publicly detailed by Eni in the same way as the McDermott contract.

For McDermott, the deal extends a strong run of large offshore awards. As Splash reported last month, the contractor secured a more than $1bn EPCI package from ADNOC for the Umm Shaif gas development offshore Abu Dhabi, covering a new pressure-boosting facility, jacket and topsides. Watch for further contract confirmations on the subsea production system and floating control unit as Cronos moves toward its 2028 first-gas target, and for whether follow-on Block 6 resources such as Calypso and Zeus are progressed.