Behind the Milestone – Here’s How Culture Drives Performance

In a challenging environment where temperatures can top 120° Fahrenheit and a diverse workforce, the journey toward best-in-class safety performance at BP’s Khazzan project was no easy feat. Read how the Jacobs team at BP’s Khazzan project’s approach made all the difference. 

BP’s Khazzan project is considered to be one of the largest-of-its-kind projects in the Middle East. Over a year since Khazzan's first gas in September 2017, the Khazzan Project has added another milestone as it achieved 30 million safe work hours mid-October. This includes the work delivered and managed by Jacobs; BP's service provider for engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) for the Gas Gathering, Wells & Export System (GWES); which was delivered by a mix of local, regional and international contractors

In a challenging environment where temperatures can top 120 degrees Fahrenheit (approximately 50 degrees Celsius) and with a diverse workforce – including 42 companies from 23 different countries speaking more than 30 different languages – the journey toward best-in-class safety performance at Khazzan was no small feat, but the team’s approach made all the difference.

“The Jacobs’ team working at Khazzan established very clear safety policies and practices, but the key to their success is how these have been applied and continuously reinforced,” said Jacobs Energy, Chemicals and Resources Senior Vice President and General Manager EMEA David Zelinski. “They adopted an approach of coaching and supporting construction subcontractors, rather than focusing on compliance management and penalties for non-compliance.”

Part of our safety culture at Khazzan includes proper training (more than 73,000 hours’ worth thus far) and encouragement to take a “timeout” if a safety hazard arises. Throughout the impressive 30 million safe work hours, the team has held more than 100 timeouts and raised over 700 concerns related to unsafe acts or conditions. 

“The support and coaching strategy enabled local construction contractors to learn how to build and embrace a safety culture in which policies and practices reflect genuine concern for the health and safety of all people working on the project,” added Zelinski.

And the cultural shift is working – the number of first aid incidents on the project is down by 80 percent and the number of recordable injuries by 50 percent. In addition to the 30 million lost-time-incident-free work hours, the project is also nearing another significant safety milestone of 10 million work hours since the last recordable injury.

Under the terms of a three-year contract, Jacobs delivers engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) services in support of the second phase of the Khazzan project known as Ghazeer, including the ongoing expansion of the gas gathering system, wellsite facilities and export pipelines. Supporting the project since 2014, Jacobs provided similar services during phase one of this milestone project. 

Production began at Khazzan in September 2017 and it has been producing at its design capacity of 1 bcf/d and ca 35,000 pbd condensate.  The Ghazeer project is expected to come on stream in 2021 and deliver an additional 0.5 bcf/d and over 15,000 bpd condensate production, delivering a significant proportion of the countries gas needs and simultaneously setting the stage for knowledge transfer, Omanization and a culture of caring that expect all employees to healthy and safe at the end of each day.