Qatargas has completed eleven years of operations on its offshore facilities without a Lost Time Accident (LTA) – a significant milestone demonstrating the company’s outstanding safety performance.
This outstanding performance across the entire offshore facilities and operations is the result of the continuous and proven commitment to safety, by the company’s leadership and workforce. Comprising nine offshore platforms, the Qatargas Offshore facilities supply gas and condensate to the onshore liquefaction plant at Ras Laffan, the largest in the world, with a production capacity of 42 million tonnes per annum (MTA) of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). The Qatargas offshore facilities are outstanding not only in terms of safety record, but also from a reliability perspective, ensuring sustained production of LNG from Qatargas’ onshore plant.
Khalid Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Qatargas CEO , said: “This achievement has been possible due to the strong safety culture embedded in every aspect of our operations. As we move ahead in our journey towards becoming the world’s premier LNG Company, our primary focus continues to be on safety. Incident and injury free operations are maintained when the management and employees together embrace safety as a core value, and this is what we have been able to achieve in Qatargas, through a number of initiatives and programmes across the organization.”
Mansoor Al-Marzooqi, Offshore Operations Manager at Qatargas , said: “To achieve eleven years without an LTA is a truly remarkable feat, demonstrating the commitment and teamwork of all those who are involved. At all levels of the offshore operations, we reiterate the message that we are each responsible for our own safety and those around us. Our commitment to the Incident & Injury Free initiative launched in 2002 continues to be the driving force behind all of our safety achievements.”
Qatargas has several programmes in place that support its goal of maintaining ‘Incident & Injury Free’ operations. Risk assessments, Permit to Work system, Job Safety Analysis etc. are some of these programmes.
Earlier this year, Qatargas launched the ’10 Life Saving Rules’ programme as the next step in the Company’s ‘Incident and Injury Free’ Culture. The Life-Saving Rules set out clear and simple Do’s and Don’ts covering activities with the highest potential safety risk. They help to make sure that rules are followed and people are protected.
The Qatargas offshore facilities are located approximately 80 kilometers northeast of Qatar’s mainland. A total of 85 wells together supply approximately 7.5 billion standard cubic feet of gas to the seven LNG production trains onshore. The gas, along with the associated condensate is transferred to shore via subsea pipelines. The North Field Bravo offshore complex, which was commissioned in 1996, is the heart of Qatargas’ offshore operations.
[mappress] LNG World News Staff, April 16, 2013; Image: Qatargas