Triumph over adversity
Woodside has delivered outstanding production and safety results in the first half of 2020 despite challenges that included COVID-19, oil price volatility and Tropical Cyclone Damien.
Those results included the Karratha Gas Plant (KGP) achieving a substantial improvement in our total recordable injury rate (TRIR) over the past two years combined with our best LNG production and reliability in recorded history.
“Delivering record production and an outstanding safety result during this period is a credit to our people who performed extraordinary work during extraordinary times,” says Senior Vice President Operations Fiona Hick.
“The challenge now is to build on the great work in the first half, reflect on the lessons learnt through the crisis and set up for the future by responding to the oil price challenge and North West Shelf coming off plateau.”
The health and safety statistics across the business are truly impressive, with only four recordable injuries (the figure was 11 for the same time last year) and two occupational illnesses (five last year).
But Health and Safety Manager Adam Ferguson warns there is no room for complacency.
“Our goal is to ensure each person goes home safe every day,” Adam says.
“That’s something we must continue to reinforce.”
He continues: “Consistency is key, and we achieve this by focusing on our behaviours, values and using the tools we have available to plan and safely execute our work, this has been central to our success.
“There is no silver bullet to strong safety performance.
“If we stay focused on the Woodside Compass values and utilise our proven tools, such as our process safety framework and ‘Our Safety Culture’ behaviours, we can achieve a perfect HSE day, every day.” Adam explains that pre-start meetings start and end with a perfect HSE day discussion.
KGP’s reliability achievement was another stellar result.
KGP Asset Manager Breyden Lonnie describes the asset’s performance as outstanding, delivering the best first-half reliability on record of about 98%.
“Working together across disciplines and as a team has been a big focus for the asset over the past few years,” says Breyden.
“The excellent results seen in safety, production and reliability has not come through good fortune. It is due to the hard work of teams and also our ability to respond to the changing risk and restrictions imposed by COVID-19.
“The continued focus on base business, a structured day, control of work, planning and campaign governance, surveillance and system oversight have been critical, and can’t change as we enter the second half and the challenges that lie ahead.”
He thanked everyone for their teamwork, dedication and combined contributions.
“I’ve never been prouder to work at Woodside and I especially want to thank those who have made the commitment to relocate from interstate to Perth or Karratha,” he says.
“The rest of 2020 and beyond still presents uncertainty, due to the continuing impact of the coronavirus and oil price volatility, but our job is to manage through that and gain certainty wherever we can.”
Read the full Q3 2020 issue of Trunkline here.
