Successful shutdown in Karratha

2022 has been referred to as ‘a year of shutdowns and turnarounds’ for our Maintenance team, with a large volume of this activity in the pipeline of work for the year. For the Heavy Lift team on Woodside’s onshore North West Shelf Project operations, this too means there’s a busy time ahead with the Maintenance team this financial year, providing support, equipment, and labour on site.

Working together collaboratively, a major shutdown was recently completed by the team at the Woodside-operated Karratha Gas Plant (KGP). The Heavy Lift team aided in scoping and planning the project with Maintenance, and provided engineering support, equipment, and labour to ensure the KGP shutdown was completed successfully.

Maintenance Oil and Gas Site Manager, Dennis Earle said that the scope of work the team undertook for the recent shutdown included meeting regulatory requirements, equipment inspections and internal vessel inspections.

“The crew on site are quite a tightknit bunch and it’s a credit to them and how well they all work together that they successfully met all of their target milestones within a good timeframe,” he said.

“There’s no doubt that 2022 threw us all some extra challenges, including people being impacted by COVID and a tight labour market, but the team overcame these obstacles and delivered really well overall.

Heavy Lift provided three 100 tonne cranes, one franna, a truck and semi-trailer along with undertaking support on the mobilisation and demobilisation of all equipment, assets, and labour during the project. Our expert Heavy Lift team also assisted with day-to-day execution of works.

“The shutdown itself was not without challenges but these provided us with good learning opportunities which we will take with us into the next shutdown.”

The team at KGP are in the midst of another shutdown this month and are applying their recent learnings.

“The return rate of our employees in Karratha is around 90 per cent, which is high in a competitive labour market, testament to the great team environment that everyone contributes to on-site,” Dennis said.

Well done to the team and we look forward to providing more updates on some of our recent shutdown activities.

Image supplied by Woodside Energy.