Doha – Qatar – Qatargas continued its outstanding safety performance by completing thirteen years of operations on its offshore facilities without a Lost Time Incident (LTI).
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). 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.
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. Qatargas continues to maintain injury and incident free operations through a number of initiatives and programs.
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. 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 team successfully 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.
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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.
Qatargas has hired three marine vessels (one safety stand-by vessel and two Dynamic Positioning (DP) vessels for transfer of passengers and materials. The materials include food supply, plant equipment related spares and chemicals, which are normally brought in once a week. One DP vessel is located in the field to meet ad hoc accommodation requirements of small project works on a need basis.
Helicopter operations are mainly utilized for the transfer of passengers from Doha heliport to the main offshore facility and back. Remote platforms are also accessed using helicopters during bad weather conditions and emergencies.
