Sphere
#35
2014
11
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procedure for taking the compressor offline
and rerouting the oil flow.”
The Upgrader’s simulation room can train
up to nine new operators a year, important
in an industry where operators are in
high demand. Husky Energy recently
added a second, adjacent simulator room
at the Upgrader, so both training and
retraining can take place at the same
time. Before simulation training, operators
were trained by observing co-workers.
“Training a new control room operator
using conventional training methods
could take up to nine months. It also
limited the trainee operator’s exposure
to both planned and unplanned events,”
Miles said. Simulators mean more, better
trained operators, faster.
3-11: Earth and sea strike
The Lloydminster Upgrader generates its
own extremes to get the job done. Other
Hutchison units are assaulted by Mother
Nature at unexpected times. The very
earth shakes, the seas rise and Nature
cannot be denied.
The 3-11 earthquake in Japan rocked the
world in 2011, leaving shock and grief in
its wake. The earthquake disrupted four
major systems which relied on submarine
cables connecting Asia via Japan to the
United States, South Korea and China. At a
time when it needed communications the
most, Japan’s connectivity to the world was
seriously impaired.
Within four hours, the Hutchison Global
Communications Limited (HGC) cable
service was fully restored. The swift
recovery was delivered in the wake of the
worst earthquake in Japanese history.
Speaking to
Sphere
, Mr Andrew Kwok,
President of International and Carrier
Business, recalls that the earthquake
struck at around noon. It was not until
dusk that HGC received the full cable
failure notifications. Preparation work,
however, had been in full swing before the
notifications came in.
Having to restore full service in just a few
hours meant that prior training was key to
the HGC team’s effectiveness. One way
to meet a crisis is to meet it prepared, and
HGC had plans in place for different cable
failure scenarios. When a certain cable
fails, staff are trained to react by making
use of the redundant capacity of other
cable systems to take up the traffic of
the failed cable. However, multiple cable
failures are much more complex than
a single cable breakdown. Most often,
HGC can only prioritise the services for
restoration and outline the redundant
resources for remedy beforehand. So, as
soon as the earthquake ripped across the
Pacific floor, HGC moved immediately to
deploy its hard-won expertise to devise a
handful of contingency plans for different
cable failure scenarios and the ensuing
breakdowns they were anticipating.
On top of contingency planning, the quick
response to the emergency and the short
recovery owe much to HGC’s protocol of
combining regular maintenance with practice
drills which Andrew believes “prepares our
engineers and facilitates recovery efforts
among different teams”. These procedures
were developed a few years ago and are
practised every one to two months.
Disaster control is not limited to
natural phenomena – cataclysm can
also be caused by humans. During riots
in Thailand, HGC asked Thai affiliates
to set up cameras to oversee the
surrounding environments of cable sites.
This would allow both the Thai and Hong
Kong staff to react immediately to any
uprisings that might damage property
and disrupt service.
In the world of business where prior
planning is key, HGC has been successful
not only in seizing opportunities, but also
by being ready to avoid complete disaster
when catastrophe strikes.
Natural disasters,
MAN-MADE SOLUTIONS
Not to be outdone, The Philippines may be
one of the most regularly benighted places
