ABSTRACT
For an upstream oil and gas company, avoiding an offshore COVID-19 outbreak while executing four different offshore projects poses a huge challenge, particularly in a country experiencing a daily COVID-19 test positivity rate over 20%. Even minor mismanagement of the quarantine process can lead to an offshore COVID-19 outbreak, with the risk of shutting down campaigns and severely impacting business objectives. The challenge is therefore to avoid an offshore COVID-19 outbreak, ensuring well-being of personnel during the quarantine period and managing quarantine related costs, including COVID-19 test costs. To ensure effective quarantine management, a new approach was created that applied a combination of medical assessments, Health & Safety (H&S) and security measures. Quarantine management was led by a special task force responsible for ensuring the readiness of transportations, rooms, PCR tests, as well as overall compliance to quarantine rules. In compliance with government regulations and WHO recommendations, another complimentary approach was applied that sequestered personnel who tested positive in an isolation room. Effective quarantine management was established with the assistance of the company Business Continuity Management Team (BCMT). The company was able to complete four different major offshore projects with no offshore COVID-19 outbreaks. During these operations, over 1,000 personnel were quarantined and tested with a 5.37% positivity rate at the pre-work quarantine site. Confirmed cases were managed in full compliance with government regulations. The result of this effective quarantine management system, has allowed the company to achieve scorecard performance goals while delivering all four of the major offshore work-scopes, as per the original business plan. This paper discusses quarantine management as part of business continuity management covering medical assessment, H&S and security measures amidst a national COVID-19 pandemic. These programs were applied in an adaptive method-based risk assessment, which based on evidence base approaches, during frequently changing government regulations. Copyright © 2022, Society of Petroleum Engineers.