Little preview ...

Our refinery (Antwerp Belgium) called in a few days ago asking us to write an article for the local magazine Actueel. Just to let the home front know what we do here in Saidi and how we cope with the culture, the temperature, the humidity and working atmosphere.
One of the guys wrote some tasty poetry, sauced it up with some fact and figures and we topped it of with a nice group-picture.

So for any of the colleagues of Antwerp reading this blog : here's a premiere for you then :-)

from left to right : Paul (the writer), Marc, yours truly, Karel, Gerrit (the editor), Mark, Johan, Guy, Lus, Eric, Richard, Tom and Joris (the photographer)

Quick link ...

Some news about the refinery here in Jubail ...

Time goes so fast ...

Damn ! I just see my last post dated 2 months ago already !
Sorry guys, didn't realize that.
It has been a bit 'busy' though, but in a good way. I went back home somewhere around the end of June to see the wife and daugther, but also to get some works done on the house, Just for a week. During that weekend we also had a family gathering. Something we do once a year and then the whole family just have a chat and a day out with some nice lunch and diner and something to relax. This year was family mini-golf and a walk in the woods. Impressive if you see about 35-40 people walking up to you  :-)
Since I don't have a car anymore, I had to rent one. And what better thing to do than rent one you would have like to have driven for a long time, right ? So, because a Lamborghini was a bit too expensive, I was thinking of a Maserati ... not available :-( So I went to Jaguar for the XJ. Also not available. My third choice was ready to go : the Porsche Panamera Diesel ! A great car ! I was really surprised of the comfort, the size, the space, the speed and the fuel-consumption. After 650+ kilometer and having tested the electronic speedlimit (240 km/h) a couple of times, the meter stopped at 42 liter of diesel ! Crazy how little it uses. I promptly made a reservation for the next visit to Belgium.

After another 3 weeks back in Saudi I took the airplane to Thailand to join my wife and daughter. Ramadan started in Saudi and almost everybody decides to go back home for a month or so, just to avoid al the difficulties that come with it : all shops are closed, you're not allowed to eat during daytime (in public that is), the Saudi get grumpy after a week (which you can't blame them for, because it's hard to obey the Ramadan rules, especially in this heat).
Huge difference and another cultural shock after a month in Thailand - green, food everywhere, smiling people and ... woman you can look at without having to fear punishment.

We also got our trainees this months and started with the lessons ... but I'll keep that for another post, because there's too much to say about this ;-)

Just a picture ...

Now who says we don't find happiness in our work ? This is 06.25 in the morning and ready for another day ! And NO, I'm not trying to kill myself by jumping in front of the car ... He could have cleaned the windscreen first though ...

The dangers of H2S ! (WARNING ! graphic pictures)

On May 20, at 12:30pm, Shaybah ISD control center reported that they received a telephone call from PMT reporting that 5 workers of GCS (Gulf cooperation SVCS (fell in the sewer at SBK-111 SAMSUNG Camp while they were fixing pumps and they needed a rescue team to respond.

The Samsung ambulance brought 4 injured persons and one person whom had already passed away to SHY clinic. They are under medical observation. 

Two Medevac flights requested to transfer them to Saudi Aramco Health Center at DH for further medical treatment.   At 20:45pm, the night shift reported that they found another three bodies floating in the sewer. At 23:40pm the Fire Rescue Team recovered the bodies to SHY clinic morgue for further investigation.

200 day celebration

Today we reached the 200 day mark before start-up. Or better said : Oil In First Topping Unit.
It went by pretty silent though. No actual celebration, not even an email.
But we just had cheer in the office ourselves.

No big difference either, because for us it's a party every day. We all like to come to work, because our team is doing so good. The supervisors are joining us and it 's almost like one big family here.

Temperatures could hit 70° celcius this summer !

Just incase some people think we are having an 'easy-going life' working here ...

LINK HERE

70°C expected during the next 2 months !

Overviewing the site ...

Just a picture my colleague took ...
(don't mind the distortion in the corners, it's a small camera ... or maybe it was the photographer, :-D)

It could be worse ...

Just received an email from a colleague here at work which I had to share with you, so, appologies to Lucien for using these pictures ;-)

Being in KSA in the dusty, hot and sometimes windy dessert isn't so bad. Okay, so now and then you sweat your butt off just going outside for a smoke (not me btw) or for a short strawl around the unit and you eat some sand, but apart from that, there's nothing else to really worry about.

NOT SO for our colleagues working in Qatar. There you are,walking around, minding your own business, doing your check-up rounds, looking at some gauges, temps, whatever and then ..... Hello !! You didn't expect this to be filling the oilreservoirs from the compressor, did ya ? It must have scared the h*** out of the field-operator when he turned around the corner !

So, you see ... the world of refining is more adventurous then you might think.

Bruised ribs ...

After almost 2 months of not training any martial arts at all, except for the daily fitness, we decided to pick it all up again. I made reservations for the animationroom for an hour on tuesday evening, so after work , me and Paul, went to exercise.
It only took us about 10 minutes to be out of breath. But we did manage to hang in there for about 45-50 minutes anyway.
We jumped rope, ran around the room, got warmed up and streched to avoid any injuries. After this we started pounding on the pillows ... pads they are called, I guess. Kicking and boxing ... pretending to be real pro's.
Then at the end we counted 15 kicks ... Paul must have counted 14 because when I dropped the pad, his number 15 came up knee-wise and struck me right above the pad straight into my ribs. At frist I didn't think too much about it and after jumping it off a little , I said to hit it again. That's when I felt it was more then just a kick in the ribs. Up to now it is hard to sleep on that side. Even fitness is out of the question, but I still go anyway. Maybe I should have it checked out, but then again, I am stubborn, I've always been. I'll just walk it off...