The Royal Dutch Shell, invited representatives at its joint oil ventures in the region for a second workshop in Abu Dhabi to discuss safety at crude facilities and improved hydrocarbon production.

More than 80 officials and experts from Shell, key oil firms in the UAE as well as hydrocarbon producers in Oman and other countries in the Middle East attended Tuesday’s workshop on operational excellence at major oil facilities in the region.

Shell officials said it was the second workshop to be staged by the Dutch firm for its oil and gas partners in the region following last year’s seminar in the UAE capital, adding that there are plans to hold such a vital meeting on an annual basis.

“The main objective of this workshop is to share the best practice among operators in the joint ventures in the region…one of the main themes of this workshop is safety…..the second key theme is efficiency in upstream production and reservoir management,” said Devin Garrity, Director and shareholder representative at Shell.

“We also want to share technology as this will help us keep abreast with the latest technology and save money… this will also allow workers in the field to access the latest in technology at fields and other facilities.”

Speaking at the workshop, he said experts discussed ways to reduce risks of having explosions and other industrial accidents to ensure the safety of all workers at the site, noting that the safety of human resources and facilities is Shell’s “top priority.”

“Such discussions are very useful…they help us to find ways to avoid any loss of availability at facilities and this will help us improve productivity…it will also allow us to improve efficiency of operations and avoid repetition of previous mistakes in the overall production process…our ultimate goal is to optimize production operations,” he said.

Another Shell official said the workshop also covered reservoir management with the aim of upgrading production and preventing waste of resources.

“The discussions covered the best ways to manage the reservoir… in other words, we want to avoid anything that could lead to production from the reservoir in the wrong way as this will harm the field and its resources…we want to convey this strong message to our partners,” said Robbert Berghuis, production operation manager for Shell upstream international non-operated ventures.

He said the theme of next year’s workshop, to be held again in Abu Dhabi, would be operational excellence but will focus on different issues.

“The focus next year will on operational integrity execution and well management…the key words we went to send are – make it safe, make it work and make it grow,” he said.

Besides Shell, participants at Tuesday’s workshop included representatives from ADNOC, ADCO, GASCO, ADMA, ZADCO, Bapetco of Bahrain, PDO of Oman and oil firms from Kuwait, Egypt, Kazakhstan, Denmark and other countries.

Shell is a major shareholder in oil firms in the UAE, Kuwait and Oman, which control more than 200 billion barrels of proven crude deposits and 10 trillion cubic metres of natural gas. Other key shareholders are Total and British Petroleum.