How has the company’s Qatar office evolved in recent years?

MATHIEU MAILAENDER Dietsmann has had a branch in Qatar for four years now. We opened here because we won a large contract to provide maintenance and inspection engineering services to review an entire equipment database in client SAP. This project was a significant achievement for us because it covered a great deal of equipment, encompassing around 200,000 tags for the Al-Shaheen Oil Field, namely the oil and gas field for NOC. The project lasted almost two and a half years and concluded last year. After the maintenance and inspection engineering services rendered for Al-Shaheen for NOC, we moved to more operational activity with TotalEnergies. We are now providing maintenance and operation services on their Al-Khalij site, which includes offshore platforms close to Halul Island. We are working there with almost 50 people on a three-year contract.

TOSHIKAZU HIROBE Chiyoda has actively supported Qatar’s energy development since the 1970s, including the development and delivery of EPC projects for 12 of the 14 LNG trains in Ras Laffan. Throughout these EPC projects, Chiyoda has always given its utmost to Qatar. Chiyoda’s intentions have not changed: to be a sustainable partner in energy operation in Qatar. In 2008, Chiyoda together with a local Qatar partner, Almana Trading Co., established Chiyoda Almana Engineering LLC to execute local plant lifecycle projects to the oil and gas sector and other industrial sectors in Qatar. Accordingly, when Qatar announced the national intention of expansion of LNG production, Chiyoda was trusted by QatarEnergy as a reliable global EPC contractor to undertake FEED and EPC in a major North Field East Onshore LNG Facilities Project. Chiyoda was selected not only because of its valuable record of mega LNG trains accomplishments in Qatar, but also for the massive development of its technologies and project operations capabilities over the decades. As Chiyoda is keen to strengthen its position as one of the leading global engineering companies, it launched a big data and AI technology service called LNG Plant AI Optimizer in 2019 to improve energy plant production. Furthermore, Chiyoda is looking at hydrogen as a promising and clean energy source and is carrying out several projects to demonstrate a hydrogen supply chain with Chiyoda’s own SPERA hydrogen technology.

What initiatives are you working on in terms of streamlined internal operations?

MM This has been one of our strategies for the past three years now, and we’re focused on further digitalization of our processes. To this end, we have created in 2019 a branch called Dietsmann Smart Labs that is focused on related initiatives. In 2022, we introduced digitalized signatures across our processes. All of our contracts and documents that require signatures are done online. We have also digitalized all of our pay slips and no longer deliver them by post. We are also working on the digitalization of our technical processes. We are increasingly conducting maintenance on a digital basis with a more predictive approach and analysis of patterns. This can avoid having to send someone offshore, which saves on cost, environmental impact, and time. Our partner Taurob has also developed Inspection and Operation robots which are the future of maintenance and operations. Our Taurob Inspector Robot is just 12 years old and is now showing good outcomes on the field. TotalEnergies is our main partner in this since 2014 and has just completed a proof of concept with Taurob Inspector Robot on Halul Island Plant.

How does the company support human capital development in Qatar as one of the main pillars of Vision 2030?

TH Chiyoda Almana has an intensive corporate social responsibility program to align and support Qatar’s government and, national vision. Over the years, Chiyoda Almana established a strong partnership and cooperation with educational institutions, medical and environmental authorities, and ministries in Qatar to carry out several initiatives under the umbrella of our CSR program. Support of national human resources comes as one of the key lines in our CSR program which we support through several initiatives such as, offering technical training opportunities to young local engineers in Qatar and in Japan as well, in collaboration with Chiyoda global headquarters in Yokohama. Furthermore, we provide internship opportunities to undergraduate and graduate students of national and international universities in Qatar such as Qatar University, Texas A&M, and more. We also offer on-the-job training opportunities to national candidates at our ongoing projects to ensure proper knowledge and technology transfer to young local generations.