Qatargas’PMP Achieves Safety Milestone

Qatargas’ Plateau Maintenance Project (PMP) has achieved a significant safety milestone as the project’s 2000-strong workforce completed three million man-hours without any lost time injury (LTI). This LTI milestone was enabled by the project's behavioral based safety observation program, which recently exceeded a 40,000 STOP cards plateau.

The Plateau Maintenance Project will ensure the production capacity of Qatargas 1 is maintained at 10 million tonnes per annum (MTA) of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG). This will be accomplished by drilling additional offshore wells, modifying associated offshore facilities, modifying the existing Qatargas Trains 1-3, and adding onshore facilities to accommodate expected increases in feed gas and hydrogen sulfide (H2S).

Sheikh Ahmed Bin Jassim Al-Thani, Chief Operating Officer - Engineering & Ventures, Qatargas, commenting on this achievement said: “This is a significant accomplishment for the PMP team. Safety is a core value and an integral part of the Qatargas culture at every level. We want each and every employee to go home safely, everyday. I thank the PMP workforce for their commitment to safety as it is their commitment that made this accomplishment possible.”

Mr James Ierubino, PMP Project Manager, said: “Keeping our people safe is a continuous and relentless effort. In order to mitigate risks, the team uses ‘STOP’ observation cards to document safe and unsafe behaviours and conditions. This data is studied thoroughly each week, and mitigating measures are continuously applied based on this analysis and trends.”

He added: “From day one since the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) contract was signed for the project, the team has focused on applying the Incident and Injury Free (IFF) initiative of Qatargas and the STOP card mechanism, which is a typical proactive activity and leading indicator for a safe workplace. We know it will require harder work going forward to ensure none of our team members experience any kind of discomfort”.

The Qatargas 1 facilities were initially built to produce six MTA, of LNG. These facilities were upgraded in 2005 through a debottlenecking project, which resulted in a new capacity of 10 MTA.