What’s involved in taking three vast engineering packages for the Duqm refinery from the drawing board to site?

Long before construction begins at site, our projects take shape in our engineering offices and vendors’ fabrication shops around the world.

Bringing incredibly complex engineering packages to life can have many challenges and requires huge amounts of expertise from our colleagues.

One of our current projects is for the Duqm Refinery and Petrochemical Industries LLC (DRPIC) in Oman. A 50/50 joint venture with Samsung, the scope of work includes engineering, procurement, construction, commissioning, training and start-up operations for all utilityand offsite facilities at Duqm.

Deputy Project Manager Chady Germanos is one of the lynchpins – overseeing and managing the engineering, manufacturing and deliveries to site of the mechanical engineering packages. Chady joined Petrofac as a graduate project engineer nearly 14 years ago and has worked across design, procurement and construction, with stints in our Milan office as a senior expediting engineer and in the US working with vendors including Siemens.

This is the first joint venture project he’s been involved in – and it has been an opportunity he’s relished. He’s been working closely with the Samsung engineering team on the deliveries. “We have different ways of execution which could have been a constraint,” he says, “but we came to an agreement at the beginning of the project which has been really fruitful and showing results now in terms of deliveries and overcoming the obstacles we’ve faced.”

There are more than 30 engineering packages for the project. Deliveries to site are ongoing and will be complete in a month. With many vendors unable to visit the site because of travel restrictions due to coronavirus, Chady and his team will continue to work on the project in a supporting capacity, fielding queries and clarifying any issues with vendors.

“I’m really proud of my team and the success of these three packages, as well as the other packages not highlighted here,” says Chady. “We’re doing really well – and our vendors have been a huge support.”

We take a closer look at three of the largest engineering packages for the project, what’s been involved from taking them from the drawing board to fabrication – and what it’s like to see the packages come alive.