Challenging year sharpens Oil Search

OIL Search continues to chase opportunities despite a challenging year which saw its operations disrupted by the devastating earthquake in February.
Speaking at the 15th PNG Mining and Petroleum Investment Conference in Sydney recently, Oil Search’s PNG business unit acting executive general manager, Robbert de Weijer, outlined how the company stepped up and continued to achieve results.
“Oil Search took on the challenge to become the first responder following the earthquake – one of the very few organisations with the ability to provide rapid on-the-ground assistance,” he said. “We attended to the needs of the communities and provided our Moro logistical base as a coordination hub for delivery and distribution of aid.”
The company also experienced interruptions to its operations caused by a loss of water and power supplies, damage to accommodation and process facilities and blocked access routes.
“Our initial response was to ensure all our people were safe and to initiate a range of activities as a first responder,” de Weijer said.
“Then we were able to manage our operational recovery which we did by establishing a dedicated team to develop a detailed plan to get us back to business as usual.”
This included re-establishing the gas supply to the PNG LNG Project on a priority basis and progressively increasing oil production as facilities were repaired and recommissioned – all achieved without incurring a single recordable injury to its workforce.
“Splitting the workload during the recovery phase meant we had dedicated teams focused on relief efforts, operated facilities and business as usual activities.
“Employees, contractors and suppliers all adjusted quickly to the total change in physical and operating environments and stayed very focused on what needed to be done.”