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Qatargas reaches safety milestone

Published by , Senior Editor
LNG Industry,


Qatargas has completed 12 years of operations on its offshore facilities without a Lost Time Incident (LTI).

The impressive milestone has been attributed to the company’s continued commitment to safety. Comprising nine offshore platforms, Qatargas’ offshore facilities supply gas and condensate to the Ras Laffan onshore liquefaction plant, with a production capacity of 42 million tpa of liquefied natural gas (LNG). The Qatargas offshore facilities are also extremely reliable, ensuring sustained production of LNG from Qatargas’ onshore plant.

LNG safety

Commenting on this achievement, Khalid Bin Khalifa Al-Thani, Qatargas CEO, said: “I would like to congratulate all the teams involved, particularly the Offshore Operations team, on this brilliant safety record. This would not have been possible without the hard work and dedication by everyone working on North Field Bravo along with the continuous support from different departments across Qatargas As we move closer to becoming the world’s premier LNG Company, our primary focus continues to be on safety. Incident and injury free operations are achieved when safety takes priority above everything else, and this is what we have been able to maintain at Qatargas, through a number of initiatives and programmes.”

Mansoor Al-Marzooqi, Offshore Operations Manager at Qatargas, said: “At all levels of the offshore operations, we reiterate the message that we are each responsible for our own safety and those around us. 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.”

Some of the programmes that Qatargas has in place to support its goal of maintaining ‘Incident and Injury Free’ operations include risk assessments, permit to work systems and job safety analysis.

LNG production

Qatargas’ offshore facilities are located approximately 80 km northeast of Qatar’s mainland. A total of 85 wells together supply approximately 7.5 billion ft3 of gas to the seven LNG production trains onshore. The gas and associated condensate are transferred to shore via subsea pipelines. 

Qatargas offshore operations operate three assets – Qatargas 1, Qatargas 2 and Qatargas 3 & 4 (joint asset of Qatargas 3 and Qatargas 4). There are seven remote wellheads platforms, and the farthest platform is wellhead-4, which is 29.6 km away from the North Field Bravo complex.

North Field Bravo 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 the site follow a seven days ‘on’ and seven days ‘off’ cycle. The average number of personnel on North Field Bravo 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 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 dynamic positioning vessel is located in the field to meet ad hoc accommodation requirements of small project works on a need basis.

Helicopter operations are mainly utilised 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.

Adapted from press release by

Read the article online at: https://www.lngindustry.com/liquefaction/22042014/qatargas_reaches_safety_milestone_lng_450/

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