What was the biggest challenge you faced when restarting Al-Khafji?
Two weeks after startup, the COVID-19 pandemic reached the region, which led to closure of the Saudi-Kuwaiti border, preventing our employees and contractors who in Kuwait from being able to come to Al-Khafji. This caused an immediate drop in our manpower roughly by half. However, with the support of both governments, we managed to obtain special border crossing permits to allow essential employees and contractors to cross the border. We also had to increase shift working hours to compensate for manpower shortage. Another challenge is how to assure consuming all produced excess gas internally to allow to comply with environmental standards, which has been tackled by operating all power plant gas turbines on gas fuel in simultaneous response to the power demands feeding to industrial and non-industrial facilities.  Â
Also, the challenge we faced when operating the De-thanizer column as it was the first time to work and produce C3+ NGL product since installed for more than 10 years.
How has the pandemic impacted KJO?
As I have stated before, the pandemic was our biggest challenge, not operational or technical matters. Aside from the steps that we have taken to reduce the pandemic’s impact on our operations, which I talked about earlier, we have created a Risk Management Committee that was tasked with taking all necessary measures to curb the spread of the pandemic and reduce, to the lowest extent possible, its impact on our business. Those measures included conducting awareness campaigns, keeping hygiene, regularly disinfecting facilities, ensuring everyone wears masks and maintains social distancing, and providing remote work arrangements for employees and contractors whose in-person presence in the facilities was not essential. I am glad to say that those measures have resulted in an extremely low infection rate amongst both employees and contractors.
What were your priorities after starting up operations again?
Our priorities were to continue operating our production facilities at the highest levels of safety and in compliance with environmental regulations, while taking all applicable measures to reduce COVID-19 infections.
As such, we ensured that our operations employees have received refresher training and relevant certifications. To that end, more than 3,000 training courses were delivered to the operations staff, covering both technical and safety topics. Â
What were the major successes for you in the past year?
As for ensuring the readiness of facilities for the resumption of production after a long shutdown period, that was no small feat by any stretch of the imagination. KJO completed the full testing, inspection, repair, and preservation of all piping and subsea pipelines, covering around 2,400 km of pipelines, more than 5,200 of control and safety valves, and over 6,000 of vessels and equipment. In addition, 240 major rotating equipment were overhauled, preserved, and reinstated under the supervision of their original manufacturers.
What are your plans for the coming year?
We plan on maintaining a safe and successful operation, especially as we gradually ramp up our production to maximize KJO revenue.
