SNDC2 AND KDC2: A TWIN ACHIEVEMENT
The second phases of the Saih Nihayda (SNDC-2) and Kauther (KDC-2) depletion compression projects have come on stream safely months ahead of schedule.
The “twin” projects received their statement of fitness in May just two years after the award of the engineering, procurement and construction contract to Larsen & Toubro (L&T). Both have now completed all commissioning activities along with hydrocarbon introduction which was followed by 72-hour compressor run tests more than four months (SNDC-2) and six months (KDC-2) ahead of schedule.
PDO and L&T worked together as one unit to ensure the speedy completion of the schemes and there was close co-ordination with Gas asset and function colleagues and the Central Project Delivery (CPD) execution team. Standardisation and synergy were hallmarks of both projects which have been developed to boost sustainable gas production. Despite a number of firsts, such as working on the third phases at the same time and with various capacity
bundles, the SNDC-2 and KDC-2 project teams anticipated and aligned various requirements continuously to enable the smooth commissioning.
The concerted efforts ensured the projects were finished ahead of schedule, with minimal pre-start-up audit (PSUA) findings and no Lost Time Injury (LTI) incidents, with around 7.5 million manhours worked and more than 4.3 million kilometres driven without a road traffic accident.
These achievements were made possible by the proactive approach taken by the project team to review the consolidated engineering, design and construction lessons learnt from other projects, such as the first phase of the Saih Nihayda depletion compression, Rabab Harweel and the third phase of the Yibal depletion compression projects.
The progress was achieved without health, safety and environment (HSE) compromises due to the teams’ extremely focused management of activities and intervention when required. They ensured an “all-hands-on-deck” approach to spot potential issues during daily and weekly HSE checks as well as ensuring human factor engineering findings and actions were properly closed and documented.
The work also had a beneficial spinoff in terms of development, with 13 Omani engineers undertaking a training programme during the detailed engineering phase at L&T’s base in India covering the design aspects.
SNDC-2/KDC-2 Project Manager
Saleh Al Hammadi said: “The team consistently spoke and acted enthusiastically to deliver on the unified commitments - to have these projects selected as a benchmark in the line of Goal Zero HSE and PSUA findings amongst its peers in CPD.
“We hope that the lessons learnt on this project, and the team’s dedication to knowledge absorption and sharing of experience gained due to the uniqueness of some of the objectives in these projects, are adopted in other projects.’’