Qatargas marks 13 years without incident

Qatargas has completed thirteen years of operations on its offshore facilities without a Lost Time Incident (LTI).

According to the company, this milestone achievement across the entire offshore facilities and operations is the result of the company’s continuous commitment to safety, by the leadership and workforce alike.

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).

“This achievement was made possible as a result of the hard work and dedication by everyone working on North Field Bravo along with the continuous support from different departments across the Company,” the company said in the press release.

The message that Qatargas reinforces across all levels of its operations is that everyone is responsible for his own safety as well as the safety of those around him, Qatargas added. For the Offshore team, working and living in the middle of the sea presented a number of challenges including tough weather conditions and a number of major activities that required careful planning and preparation. The company says that the team overcame these challenges, proving their strong commitment to maintaining an incident and injury free work environment.

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. In 2013, 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.

Qatargas offshore operations operate three assets – Qatargas 1, Qatargas 2 and Qatargas 3&4 (joint asset of Qatargas 3 and Qatargas 4). The main complex known as “North Field Bravo” (NFB) is situated about 80 kilometers north east of Qatar’s mainland. There are seven remote wellheads platforms, and the farthest platform is wellhead-4, which is 29.6 kilometers away from the NFB complex.

NFB has 90 Qatargas direct hire employees and 36 permanent contractors working onboard for 28 days followed by a field break for 28 days. Qatari employees working on NFB follow a seven days ‘ON’ and seven days ‘OFF’ cycle. The average number of personnel on NFB at any given time is around 120. They are responsible for meeting the operational, maintenance and project activity requirements on the complex.

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