Articles by Asdza Nadleehe

Modular construction - the process of completing different sections of a building offsite before bringing the components together to form a finished structure - is a relatively new industry approach that brings many benefits. One of the primary advantages is fast delivery, which was recently illustrated by a hotel development project in China's Hunan province. Using 200 workers, Broad...Full Article »

After 15 years of Civil War that claimed up to 1 million lives, Mozambique is back on track and set to cash in on the plethora of natural resources that underpin the East African nation. With almost 24 million inhabitants, a population growth rate of 2.4 per cent and average annual economic growth of 8.5per cent over the past decade, Mozambique is one of Africa’s up and coming nations...Full Article »

RFID (Radio Frequency identification) technology has been around in one form or another since World War II, where work on the first radar systems spawned the use of passive RFID systems to distinguish friendly from enemy fighters in the skies over war-torn Europe. In the past 70 years, innovations in electronics from transistors to microchip technology and the miniaturisation of components have...Full Article »

Remote access for isolated installations   With the oil and gas industry going into ever more extreme regions of temperature, pressure and seclusion from civilisation, wireless systems and the automation that they bring provide a welcome alternative to costly manned control in environments where people generally do not work well. One such application of wireless command and control...Full Article »

Oil and gas is one of the most pioneering sectors of global industry. In the past decade we have perfected how to extract oil and gas from solid shale rock formations and started to exploit ancient reserves tens of kilometres below the seabed. Despite the technological prowess, innovative spirit and imagination that is propelling the industry to greater, hotter and deeper challenges, there is...Full Article »

Natural Gas flaring has been a constant since the oil business began, but now the tables are turning on this common practice. Find out why and how we can cut flaring to a bare minimum and exactly why we're only broaching the subject now WHY WE SHOULD Flaring: The Unseen Emissions Monster Whilst we the worldwide environmental movement concentrates largely on reducing the carbon emissions from...Full Article »

In the light of the recent tragic events at PDVSA's Amuay facility in Venezuela, Oil & Gas IQ looks at the The Norco Refinery Explosion   Date: May 5, 1988 Location: Norco, Diamond County, Louisiana, USA Casualties: 7 fatalities, 42 injured Estimated cost: $ 706 million Details: The explosion at this Shell-owned oil refinery occurred at 3:40 am on the morning of May 5 th after gas...Full Article »

As of the beginning of 2012, there were more than 190,000 kilometres of hydrocarbon-carrying pipelines planned or under construction worldwide - enough to wrap around the globe almost five times. Of that 190,000 kilometres, 142,000 are currently in the planning and design phase, with three quarters of this pipestock to be exclusively dedicated to the transport of natural gas.   Of the...Full Article »

Lebanon LNG terminal Project commencement: 2013 Commission date: 2015 Location: Baddawi, Northern Lebanon Ownership: Tendering now Capacity: 3.5 million tonnes per annum (mtpa) With constant blackouts and power cuts affecting the tiny Levantine nation since the end of its civil war, Lebanon has dedicated its energy future to LNG with the Ministry of Energy claiming that Lebanon “would save...Full Article »

In the global oil and gas industry, companies are compelled to meet or exceed a vast array of environmental, health and safety standards. The high-profile blowout and explosion at BP’s Macondo well in the US Gulf of Mexico, brought the challenges and the risks of drilling into high-pressure, high-temperature (HPHT) fields increasingly into focus. High pressure, high temperature, high risk?...Full Article »

S upervisory C ontrol A nd D ata A cquisition or SCADA systems are now in place in the majority of the world’s facilities, especially where large-scale automation is a key constituent. SCADA systems monitor and control internal operations by gathering data from sensors embedded in the facility or remote terminal units (RTUs) and then relaying it to a centralised computer system that sorts...Full Article »