It was a pleasure to participate with a presentation titled “Toward a Safe and Reliable Commissioning” during the Oil and Gas Facility Commissioning & Startup 2015 Workshop arranged by Sigmoid at Abu Dhabi on November 25-26, 2015.
It was attended by subject matter experts from different organisations around the world. Despite commissioning comes at the end of the project, after Mechanical Completion, it has to be planned for at the early stages during the FEED and Detailed Design to start with the end in the mind. This will substantially reduce the cost of subsequent changes that come at a later stage and ensure all requirements are captured at the beginning.
Effective execution of pre commissioning activities is a vital issue to ensure equipment functionality and system cleanliness. This will definitely optimize the commissioning / startup duration, reduce commissioning cost and mitigate risk of process upset or interruption.
Development of the commissioning procedures and compliance are other key factors to achieve a safe and successful commissioning. Training and development tools to have qualified and competent resources have also been covered in details.
Other interesting aspects were also shared by the distinguished presenters such as initiatives to optimize the cost of commissioning, involvement of the right mix of people during all phases of the project including representatives from Operations and Maintenance, tools and techniques to improve commissioning, utilization of vendors and manufacturers services as well as training and development.
At the end of the workshop an interesting integrated knowledge discussion was conducted highlighting the pros and cons of performing commissioning by either the company or by the EPC contractor with specialized resources. This was a good venue for the different participants to discuss this controversial issue considering responsibility, availability of competent resources, schedule, cost, quality and others.
Our gratitude is extended to the organizers for arranging such enriching workshop and to all distinguished speakers for exchanging knowledge, experience and lessons learned pertinent to commissions and startup of oil & gas facilities.
Abdullah Al Hejji
November 30, 2015
November 30, 2015
