The Kuwaiti Digest is a quarterly magazine published by the

Kuwait Oil Company (K.S.C.) since 1973.

The Kuwaiti Digest invites newspaper, magazine and trade journal editors to reprint or otherwise make use of articles or illustrations appearing in this issue. Material should be credited and a copy mailed to the Kuwait Oil Company.

Editor-in-ChiefSaad Rashed Al-Azmi

Deputy Editor-in-ChiefSami Al-Juhaim

Correspondence concerningThe Kuwaiti Digest should be addressed to:Editor-in-Chief, Kuwait Oil Company (K.S.C.)Information TeamP.O. Box 9758Ahmadi 61008, KuwaitTelephone: 965-2398-2747Facsimile: 965-2398-1076E-mail: kocinfo@kockw.comor visit the KOC homepage athttp://www.kockw.com

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Contents

Kuwait Oil & Gas Summit

Kuwait Energy and Water Efficiency Conference

17th HSSE Award Ceremony

Solar Energy in Kuwait: Facts and Myths

The Man Who Moved Giants

Shale Gas and Kuwait’s Oil Future

KOC Comes Closer to Realizing 2030 Strategy Objectives

Construction for KOC’s Small Boat Harbors Project Begins

Tuesday Talk: Knowledge Sharing Process

Cape Town, South Africa

Hi-Tech

Ramadan: The Benefits of Fasting

Holistic Approach for Lean Six Sigma Deployment at KOC

One Woman’s Battle: Exposing Anorexia and Bulimia

Conventional Vs. Solar Absorption Chillers: An Analysis

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As the country prepares for another long, hot summer, we at KOC are continuing to work hard to ensure that all measures related to the successful implementation of the 2030 Strategy are in place. With a close eye on our future goals and targets, we are glad to see all Teams throughout the Company put in the extra effort to help transform KOC into a larger, safer and more efficient exploration and production company.

The past few months have seen KOC make great strides toward becoming an oil and gas company that others throughout the region can look up to and hope to emulate. Readers can learn more about some of our Company’s most recent initiatives and accomplishments by reviewing a story in the pages that follow about the HSSE Award Ceremony, which is now in its 17th year. On a more international scale, our lead story covers the 3rd Kuwait Oil and Gas Summit, which served as a forum where oil and gas officials from Kuwait and abroad were able discuss the strategic future of our industry.

You may notice that the theme of this issue deals with energy conservation and alternative energy, most notably solar. It is no secret that much stress is placed on Kuwait’s energy grid in the summer months as everyone’s air conditioners and lights are left on, especially during Ramadan when people are active and awake later in the night. I encourage our readers to spend time with the articles that follow about Kuwait’s water and energy efficiency plans. There is also important information about the potential of solar energy and how it can play a large role in creating a cleaner, more sustainable future for Kuwait. At a recent energy efficiency conference in Kuwait, a speaker summed up the

benefits of efficiency succinctly when he said: “If Kuwait can double its efficiency, it can effectively double its wealth.”

While our goals for the future include raising production to 4 million BOPD, KOC remains committed to protecting the health and safety of both its employees and the population at large. In addition, the Company’s commitment toward the environment and giving back to the community remains strong, and we look forward to making more positive contributions over the next quarter.

I would like to take this opportunity to remind our readers that they can do their part in Kuwait’s conservation efforts. By turning off lights when not in use and setting air conditioning units to reasonable temperatures (25° C is cool and comfortable), they can play a large part in relieving stress on the grid and saving energy. By conserving energy today, you are creating wealth for the generations of tomorrow.

Finally, I would like to say Ramadan Kareem to all of our readers. It is my sincere hope that everyone from KOC’s extended family has a blessed month and is able to enjoy spending time with their families and loved ones.

Letter fromthe Editor

Saad Rashed Al-AzmiDeputy CEO

(Administration & Finance)

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The 3rd Kuwait Oil & Gas Summit was held recently at the Jumeirah Messilah Beach Hotel. The event, which was hosted by Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), served as a forum where oil and gas officials from Kuwait and abroad could discuss the strategic future of Kuwait’s oil and gas industry.

H.E. the Minister of Oil, Dr. Ali Al-Omair, patronized the summit and delivered the event’s open-ing remarks, where he main-tained that the oil sector was the key pillar of Kuwait’s national in-dustry and that it served as the lifeline for the national economy. In regard to future plans, pro-jects and ambitions, the minister said that Kuwait is currently in the process developing a number of

3rd Kuwait Oil and Gas SummitInternational Event

very important projects which are aimed at bringing the industry to a new level of sophistication and capability. “Such efforts,” he said, “are part of Kuwait’s ambi-tious vision to become a finan-cial and commercial hub in the region.”

The minister went on to say that KPC was making great strides in its efforts to further develop Kuwait’s national industry in or-der to enhance Kuwait’s status in the world of oil and gas, es-pecially considering the fact that Kuwait is a key player in the in-ternational oil market. “Kuwait,” he said, “plays a very important function in that it continues to provide adequate oil supplies to its customers despite global un-rest, particularly in production

areas throughout the region.” Kuwait’s commitment and sta-bility, he said, gives confidence to the nation’s many customers throughout the world in addi-tion to developing Kuwait’s local manpower by creating jobs for young people. “The policy of the oil sector,” he said, “gives great importance to local economic development.”

The Minister of Oil said this pol-icy, which has a strong focus on Kuwait and its young population, is the key to sustainable develop-ment which aims to ensure the energy needs of generations to come. In addition, it serves to cre-ate balance and integration be-tween environmental protection and the development of highly efficient methods of energy

H.E. the Minister of Oil, Dr. Ali Al-Omair, addresses the audience

production and consumption. The minister then concluded his remarks by upholding the impor-tance of events like the Kuwait Oil and Gas Summit, which he said serve as excellent opportunities for a large selection of experts to come together and seek practi-cal solutions for the development of an integrated and strategic re-lationship to encourage and im-prove oil investments in Kuwait.

Following the minister’s open-ing remarks, KPC CEO Nizar Al-Adsani took the stage and discussed KPC’s current and ongoing plans, which include boosting production to 4 mil-lion barrels per day by 2030. In order to do this, Al-Adsani said, KPC must carry out a number of complex, capital intensive and very demanding projects which include oil exploration in geolog-ically complex areas and the de-velopment of new oilfields. This, he said, is in addition to a con-tract worth $12 billion that was recently signed with British, US and Japanese companies to im-plement the Clean Fuels Project. The KPC CEO also said that the corporation expected to go

forward with plans for a new oil refinery that has a current price tag of $15 billion.

In his remarks to the audience, Al-Adsani maintained that Kuwait’s oil industry was in the midst of a great transformation and that Kuwait must be in a position to change to responses in the market. He then touched on future oil demand and the necessity for all K-Companies to make the proper prepara-tions to meet future goals. In this regard, the CEO affirmed that Kuwait has a shortage of skilled

national manpower, particularly engineers, and that future de-mands will require more Kuwaitis to pursue degrees in this field. However, the degree and scope of Kuwait’s future projects will necessitate, he said, the need for outside help and cooperation with these undertakings.

Clean Fuels Project

On the sidelines of the Kuwait Oil and Gas Summit, the Minister of Oil said that the recently signed Clean Fuels Project will favorably reflect on the country’s national

KOC CEO Hashem Hashem delivering his opening address.

Dr. Alirio Parra of CWC Group speaks to the audience.

KPC CEO Nizar Al-Adsani delivers his remarks.

5 TheKuwaitiDigest

economy. He maintained that great efforts were being made to improve the quality of Kuwaiti oil products in order to meet the increasingly strict international specifications and environmental requirements.

“We hope that by 2017-2018 we will have completed such accomplishments and utilized oil derivatives that fulfill global environmental requirements, thus opening world markets to Kuwait,” said Al-Omair.

KOC to Award $4.3bn Heavy Oil Contract

In a session titled “Implementing Major Projects Through Cooperation,” KOC CEO Hashem Hashem said that Kuwait plans to award a $4.3 billion contract later this year for the first phase of a project to pro-duce heavy oil in Ratqa Field in the North. The project is part of efforts to meet Kuwait’s target of producing 4 million barrels per day by 2030. Kuwait currently produces around 3 million bpd and exports around two-thirds.

In regard to the contract, Hashem said that it was for “facilities needed to develop heavy oil, to be able to produce up to 60,000 bpd for the planned first phase of the project in Kuwait’s northern Ratqa Field. “All the international EPC contractors showed interest, and they are actively participat-ing in this bid,” he said. KOC will spend about three months as-sessing the bids and award the contract by about October, he added. The 60,000 bpd should be online by 2017 or 2018, he said, adding that by 2020, pro-duction should be 120,000 bpd and KOC will evaluate whether it needs to raise this to 270,000 bpd beyond that date. Kuwait’s current capacity is around 3.25 million bpd, with KOC’s share at around 3 million bpd, Hashem said.

To bring the capacity up to 4 mil-lion bpd by 2020, KOC will need to contribute an extra 650,000 bpd. “The growth of production is going to come from North Kuwait,” the KOC CEO said. Currently, KOC is producing around 700,000 bpd there and

will boost this by 300,000 bpd, he said. Hashem expected that Kuwait’s Jurassic Gas Field pro-ject, also in the north, would pro-duce an associated 300,000-350,000 bpd of light oil. Asked whether Kuwait was looking at shale gas production, Hashem said there was potential for it but that such operations were low on KOC’s priority list. “We have a huge bundle of reserves. The pri-ority of shale gas is not that big.”

KNPC to Invest $35 billion in Next 5 Years

Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) will invest $35 billion in expanding and devel-opment projects in the coming five years, the company’s Chief Executive Officer Mohammad Ghazi Al-Mutairi said. “At the forefront of these projects are the multi-billion dollar Clean Fuels Project, the new Al-Zour Refinery, the fifth natural gas plant and the construction of new liquefied natural gas import facilities,” said Al- Mutairi during his speech at Kuwait Oil and Gas Summit and Exhibition.

Attendees included oil and gas professionals from the region and beyond

Al-Mutairi underlined that the strategic projects would have great impacts on the competive-ness of Kuwait’s oil products on the global market. “These pro-jects will help Kuwaiti products enter new international markets thanks to their high quality and competitiveness and give a push to our national economy and development in the country,” he said. The project will transform the refineries into an integrated merchant refining complex that meets the requirements of the world oil market. It will also in-crease the refining capacity to 800,000 barrels a day. The new multi-billion dollar Al-Zour refin-ery will be one of the largest oil

refining plants in the world. It will help supply low sulfur fuel (less than 1%) to local power plants.

In his closing remarks, Al-Mutairi said he expected the world’s oil refining map to be changed in the coming years as North America have turns from import-er to exporter of oil products. He added that global refining output will increase in the next five years to the equivalent of 9.5 million barrels a day.

The 3rd Kuwait Oil & Gas Summit & Exhibition, officially hosted by the Kuwait Petroleum Corporation (KPC), is the strate-gic meeting place for the Kuwait oil and gas industry.

The Summit has a reputation for delivering quality and excel-lence, whilst playing a critical role in helping to set the agenda for sustainable growth. The pro-gram for 2014 included forward-thinking debate on capacity building, efficiency and coopera-tion, with a focus on the policies, investment and skills needed to realize Kuwait’s strategic oil and gas objectives.

Key topics included:

• Strategies for a sustainable energy future

• Priorities for realizing poten-tial and maintaining a com-petitive advantage

• Driving energy efficiency

• Delivering excellence and best practice

• Adding value to the econo-my through downstream

• Partnership and investment opportunities

• Achieving Kuwait’s interna-tional strategic objectives

The interactive panel discussions were well-received by all

7 TheKuwaitiDigest

“If you can double your efficiency through the usage of hydrocar-bons, you can essentially double your wealth.”

The Kuwait Energy and Water Efficiency Conference was held recently at the Jumeirah Messilah Beach Hotel. The event, which saw the participation of a host of figures from across Kuwait’s public and private sectors, was organized at the request of the Ministry of Electricity and Water, the Ministry of Oil, KPC and the Environmental Public Authority.

Edmund O’Sullivan, Chairman of MEED Events, delivered open-ing remarks and maintained that the Kuwait Energy and Water Efficiency Conference was the only event which sought to

address the need for sustainable energy solutions in Kuwait. In ad-dition, he upheld the important role the conference played in bringing together policy makers and industry leaders so that they can continue the process of map-ping an energy efficiency plan for the country. An energy effi-ciency plan, he maintained, has the potential to positively trans-form the Kuwaiti economy as oil prices remain stagnant and production increases in countries such as Iraq and Iran.

“The consensus among many in regard to the future of oil in the region is that the price of oil will most likely not see any significant rises. Production has increased while demand has flattened, and countries such as the US

are working to become hydro-carbon self-sufficient. The stra-tegic question, therefore, is how to attain future economic growth from other areas, and the area with the greatest potential is ef-ficiency,” O’Sullivan said.

“This means getting more out of your people, making them more productive, and focusing on the benefits of education and tech-nology. If you can double your efficiency through the usage of hydrocarbons, you can essen-tially double your wealth,” the MEED Chairman said. He added that the Gulf region in particu-lar was in an excellent position to make the necessary prepara-tions today for a sound economic future, as it currently has ample resources and wealth to invest.

Kuwait Energy and Water Efficiency Conference

International Event

Edmund O’Sullivan, MEED Events Chairman, and Dr. Meshan Al-Otaibi, Assistant Undersecretary of Planning and Training from the MEW, delivered opening remarks.

However, he reminded the audi-ence that it was important to act now as rising budgets take more money out of oil profits year after year.

The first speaker to address the audience was Dr. Meshan Al-Otaibi, Assistant Undersecretary of Planning and Training from the Ministry of Electricity and Water. During his presentation, Dr. Al-Otaibi confirmed the need for Kuwait to act quickly in or-der to reverse the country’s un-sustainable approach to energy production.

“The question of efficiency in Kuwait is a very important one, and as many of you know, Kuwait is the world’s leader in per capita energy usage. This summer, we expect peak energy consumption to stand at some 13,000 megawatts. Thirty years down the line, we expect this fig-ure to more than double to some 30,000 megawatts. The annual cost of supplying energy for Kuwait stands at approximately KD 3 billion, and this will exceed KD 8 billion by 2030. In terms of barrels of oil consumed for en-ergy purposes, today that figure

stands at 350,000 barrels. This, however, will jump to 800,000 barrels per day by 2030 at the current rate,” Dr. Al-Otaibi said.

“These figures indicate that Kuwait must do something now. We cannot wait for this very dif-ficult situation to descend upon us without making some types of preparations. It goes without saying that our national income is dependent on the exportation of oil, and when we burn that oil for fuel, we are losing out on potential revenue. So, what have we been doing to prepare for the next era of Kuwait’s energy fu-ture? For one, we are restructur-ing the system and preparing to privatize the way in which elec-tricity is delivered. In this regard, a new draft law has been pre-pared and we expect approval in the next two years. This will start with the government shar-ing the responsibility of electric-ity production with the private sector before advancing to the next stage which will see the pri-vate sector take on more and more responsibilities. Secondly, we must improve the efficiency of the grid. Currently, we have some losses and we must work

hard to minimize these losses. We also are working with KPC to maximize gas usage at the power plants as it is a cleaner and more efficient fuel source,” he said.

Dr. Al-Otaibi went on to say that other measures are being planned or implemented to in-crease energy savings and effi-ciency in Kuwait. For example, a revision of the new building code will support energy conserva-tion by creating stricter measures for things such as air condition-ing unit specifications and dou-ble glazed windows for better insulation, which will become mandatory for new construc-tion projects. District cooling, which is a method of delivering chilled water to buildings which need cooling during the warmer months, is planned for the new areas in Kuwait which are under construction, such as the new Khairan City in the south and Mutla in the north. In regard to plans for the utilization of renew-able energy, the assistant under-secretary maintained that Kuwait is making progress in terms of studying the practical applica-tions of solar technology. The Shagaya Project, for example,

The conference was well-attended by oil and gas professionals from the region.

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is a solar pilot project that the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research is studying. Successful results of this project may trans-form how Kuwait acquires a sig-nificant percentage of its energy requirements.

While efficiency and alternative energy are important elements of Kuwait’s energy future, Dr. Al-Otaibi reminded the audience that there was another factor at play, namely, Kuwait’s consum-er culture. Energy consumers, that is to say, the population at large, have become accustomed to paying a phenomenally low price for energy thanks to gov-ernment subsidies. In order to create better efficiency and change the general attitude among the population that “en-ergy is free”, prices must reexam-ined. Currently, for example, the consumer pays 2 fils per kilowatt while the government produces energy at a cost of 42 fils per kilowatt, meaning the consumer pays only about 5% of the actual cost of the electricity. Because energy is so cheap for the con-sumer, there is no incentive for him or to cut back on energy usage. However, a rise in prices

will have the effect of reminding consumers of the true cost of en-ergy and can play a large role in eliminating unnecessary usage of energy.

In regard to future projects, Dr. Al-Otaibi maintained that the new Zour North Phase 1 power plant will be completed by the end of 2016. It will have a ca-pacity of 1,500 megawatts. Zour North Phase 2 has a target com-pletion date of 2018, and Phase 3 and 4, when completed, will generate 1,800 megawatts. In Abdaliyah, an integrated solar combining project will generate 280 megawatts by 2017, and in Khairan, the new power plant will generate 1,500 megawatts in its first phase. All in all, over the next seven to eight years, Kuwait will add an additional 8,000 megawatts to the grid through these new projects, Dr. Al-Otaibi said.

Following Dr. Al-Otaibi’s pres-entation, Sami Al-Ali, Managing Director of the Middle East Renewable Energy Group and Senior Adviser and Special Envoy for the Intergovernmental Renewable Energy Organization,

took the stage. During his pres-entation, Al-Ali discussed the feasibility of Kuwait attaining 15% of its energy from clean en-ergy by addressing current ob-stacles, challenges and the way forward.

“We will not have oil to export unless we do something about domestic consumption,” Al-Ali said. These words set the tone for the rest of his presentation, which addressed the pressing need for Kuwait to reverse the trend of overconsumption. Al-Ali maintained that it may be ac-ceptable for Kuwait to spend KD 3 billion on energy today, but, he asked, will the country be able to afford such costs 10, 15 or 30 years down the line? The answer, he maintained, was that Kuwait will most likely not be able to pay such high costs in the future, but more importantly, Kuwait simply should not accept to pay such high costs when those costs can be lowered through efficiency measures and alternative energy.

“Kuwait has the right ingredients to start pursuing renewable en-ergy. We sun almost year-round and we have the cash today to

A group photo of a visiting delegation.

start building. We are not aim-ing to completely replace hydro-carbons, we are only seeking to complement hydrocarbons in the production of energy. The ques-tion is, can we achieve 15% of our energy requirements through alternatives by 2030?” he asked.

Al-Ali told the audience that in or-der to discover the way forward, it would be wise for Kuwait to learn from the examples of oth-ers who have paved the way in the field of alternative energies. In this regard, he said that there are two main options to consider. These options include a central-ized production unit, where an entity such as the government or private industry produces most, if not all, of the country’s en-ergy requirements. The second is a decentralized unit, where the burden of energy produc-tion is spread across parties such as the government, private in-dustry, and the end consumers themselves, who in turn become producers through the use of energy production technologies such as photovoltaic solar cells. In order to convince consum-ers to become net producers of energy, however, they must be

incentivized, he said. In order to do this, consumers can be given tax breaks or be provided with credit on their energy bills if they are sending energy back into the grid. The benefits of a decentral-ized system of energy production where, for example, the popula-tion has many consumers with solar panels who are feeding energy back into the grid, is that there is no single point of failure. If one system goes down, the whole system is not affected, and this, Al-Ali said, is beneficial for all parties involved.

As a strong supporter of the so-lar energy cause, Al-Ali shared a tentative plan for future energy production in Kuwait where the government buys energy from the consumer at 10 fils while sell-ing it back to the consumer for 2 fils, which represents a subsidy for the consumer and a break-even for the government which is more cost and energy efficient than the current system. Al-Ali added that Kuwait must invest in a smart grid which allows for the bidirectional flow of power, create an attractive buyback scheme, and create awareness among consumers about the

need for energy reform. One of the benefits, he said, of con-sumers producing power is that their awareness of energy con-sumption and production will increase, which will lead to them being more conservative in how they use power. Al-Ali then con-cluded his presentation by tell-ing the audience that it was his belief that Kuwait can achieve its 15% renewable target by using a decentralized system in which consumers contribute to the pro-duction of energy through solar methods, which are becoming more and more affordable and economically viable.

The Kuwait Energy and Water Efficiency saw the participation of other speakers who advo-cated measures to create better efficiency in Kuwait’s energy pro-duction sector. Panel discussions witnessed active discussion and participation from the audience, and potential action plans were put into plan by the many parties involved.

Attendants listen to speakers during one of the panel discussions.

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The 17th edition of KOC’s Award for Health, Safety, Security and the Environment (HSSE) was held recently at the Hilton Kuwait Resort and Hotel in Mangaf. The annual event is a significant oc-casion in the sense that it pro-vides KOC with the opportunity to celebrate some of the most important and outstanding ini-tiatives undertaken by Company employees in the field of HSSE. This year’s event was held un-der the theme of “Save, Recycle, Grow.”

During a speech he delivered at the event, KOC CEO Hashem Hashem told the audience that KOC spared no efforts in its quest to improve and enhance HSSE standards throughout the Company. In addition, Hashem upheld his belief that it was necessary for the good of the Company to entrench HSSE val-ues in KOC’s core business and instill those ideals into the every-day activities of KOC employees throughout all facilities.

Hashem maintained that a long-standing Company priority has been to make efforts to do its

utmost in fulfilling its responsibil-ities toward the community while it performs its core business. In this regard, the CEO told the au-dience that KOC seeks to iden-tify the needs of the society and offer everything in its power to make a positive difference in the best interest of the community, its development and prosperity. He added that the Company’s initia-tives are diversified, continuous and not only limited to Ahmadi, but extend to all areas through-out Kuwait. For example, KOC is concerned with the safety of the population at large and not just

KOC Holds 17th HSSE Award Ceremony

Local Event

KOC CEO Hashem Hashem delivers opening remarks.

its own employees. Hashem re-minded the audience that KOC was proud to make a valuable contribution to road safety for all by installing “smart” traf-fic cameras along King Fahad Expressway near Nuwaiseeb. These cameras have the stated purpose of identifying traffic vio-lators and discouraging reckless drivers, and their effectiveness has been demonstrated over the past year with a drop in the number of major road violations. Programs like the installation of traffic cameras fall under KOC’s corporate social responsibility programs, Hashem said.

“The nature of business in the Company and that of the oil in-dustry requires us to make every effort to protect the lives of em-ployees and contractors alike. Meanwhile, it is imperative for the Company to ensure that its business is conducted in line with the latest HSE systems as an en-forcement of its leading role in order to meet the development requirements of our country,” the CEO said.

Hashem maintained that KOC has made great strides in terms of its efforts to reduce gas flar-ing. “With the aim of optimizing our natural resources and pro-tecting the environment against pollution, our efforts have led to the reduction of gas flaring by 1.24%, which exceeds the target rate,” he said.

KOC’s care for the environ-ment is extensive and, accord-ing Hashem, has proceeded at a faster pace and in accord-ance with a carefully studied methodology that has been de-veloped in conjunction with the Public Authority for Agriculture and Fish Resources (PAAFR) and other parties concerned with the protection of wildlife and the environment.

“In addition, KOC has been keen to enhance the performance of its contractors through the de-velopment of HSSE regulations and conditions in their contracts which encourage them to com-ply with standards that seek to curb industrial incidents. In this regard, KOC has managed to

reduce industrial incidents by 0.29% in 2003/2004 to 0.03% last year,” the CEO said.

The KOC CEO concluded his speech by expressing his grati-tude to employees and contrac-tors who have made efforts to elevate HSSE matters throughout the Company.

Following the CEO’s speech, Ahmed Abbas, the Health, Safety and Environment Group Manager took the stage and briefly discussed KOC’s HSE Management Systems, which in-clude Risk Management, Integrity Management and Identification of Hazards within all KOC activities.

“The Company has implement-ed a set of measures that fall in line with our Strategic Objectives

concerning the protection of the environment. Consequently, KOC has minimized gas flaring, effluent water disposal to the pits and also implemented a waste management program,” he said, adding that KOC recognized the importance of awareness cam-paigns and programs related to HSE and how those programs do much in the way of encour-aging positive behavior and per-formance from employees and contractors.

The 2014 CEO HSSE Award received 245 applications in the Health, Safety, Security, Environment and HSSE Awareness categories. There were a total of 13 winners from the applications received.

The KOC CEO personally congratulated HSSE Award winners.

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Safety: Changes to behavior, procedures, design or opera-tions that raises safety standards. Applications should be submit-ted under one of the following categories:

General Safety

Process Safety

Security: Changes to behavior, procedures, design or operations which raise security standards.

Environment: Activities which help protect and conserve the environ-ment and minimize the impact of KOC’s activities, including activi-ties to reduce waste, emissions and environmental improvement schemes in the community.

HSSE Awareness: Programs de-signed to educate and motivate employees, contractors, students and the public.

Applications are judged on the following guidelines:

Performance: Has the activity contributed to the improvement of HSSE performance at KOC?

Reputation: Has it enhanced KOC’s reputation/image?

Outreach: Has the activity con-tributed to awareness or im-provement of HSSE issues among employees, contractors, students or the public?

Transferability: Can the activ-ity be applied to other KOC activities?

Cost Efficiency: Has HSSE im-provement been implemented in the most cost efficient manner?

2014 CEO HSSE Supreme Award Winners:

Transformer Oil Regeneration

Category: Environment

Members: Ali Noori Hasan Esa, Sulaiman Abdullah Al-Dakheel, Sayed Ahmed Baqer Al-Esmaeel.

Transformer Oil Regeneration is a solution that has proven to be both cost effective and environmentally friendly. The Transformer Oil Regeneration Machine is connected to a trans-former and within 36 hours of operation, it restores the oil to its original condition, thereby elimi-nating the need for shutdown. As the regeneration maintains the oil temperature, moisture ingres-sion is avoided, hence ensuring the quality of the oil. It also re-duces both the hazardous waste disposal costs and new oil costs to replace the oil.

KOC employees can view a complete list of winners and a description of their achievements through the KOC Portal.

About the KOC CEO HSSE Award

The KOC CEO HSSE Award was created in order to recognize out-standing achievements at KOC in the fields of Health, Safety, Security and the Environment. The awards are open to employ-ees and teams of up to five key members, and applications are invited to be submitted on an annual basis. Applications from cross departmental teams is highly encouraged.

Applications from the following fields of work are encouraged:

Health: Initiatives or programs that promote and enhance health. Applications should be submitted under one of the fol-lowing sub-categories:

Occupational Health: Improvements in the work place, home or community environment of KOC that enhance health, fitness and hygiene.

Medical Health: Improvements by medical policy & personnel that improves the health, fitness and hygiene.

Solar Energy in Kuwait: Facts and Myths

Report

There is much talk these days about solar energy utilization in Kuwait. We hear of two so-lar projects that are coming: one project championed by the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research (KISR) in Shagaya, and another project championed by Kuwait Oil Company (KOC). The motivation to use solar energy in Kuwait comes from the desire to reduce greenhouse gas emis-sions, where Kuwait stands today as one of the leading countries in terms of emissions per capita in the world (see Figure 1).

Solar energy is the most visible form of energy that we all feel in Kuwait. Yet, its utilization re-mains an elusive subject to many people. There is a prevailing as-sumption that solar energy is too expensive, and that its utilization is limited because of its reliance on an intermittent resource that is available only during daytime. Further, there is a perception that solar energy is best in hot

climates like Kuwait, but its use is not feasible because of the dust and sand storms. How true are these perceptions? This article examines the facts and the myths associated with solar energy, and its application in Kuwait.

First of all, it is important to real-ize that there are fundamentally two different ways to convert the sun energy into electricity: a di-rect way, and an indirect way. Direct conversion of sunlight into electricity involves using a class of materials, referred to as semi-conductors. The most famous and abundant semiconduc-tor available on earth is silicon, which comes from the processing of sand (silica) into silicon wafers that are then processed further to produce solar cells. Solar cells have the property of converting photons (i.e., light waves) into electrons (i.e., electricity). Solar cells are, therefore, commonly referred to as photovoltaic, ab-breviated as PV. The first solar

cell that was commercially dem-onstrated dates back to 1954, and was introduced by Bell Labs in the USA. That champion solar cell had an efficiency of 6%. To put this in perspective, every one square meter of earth receives 1000 Watts during noon time. Accordingly, at 6% efficiency, a one square meter solar panel would produce 60 Watts at so-lar noon (see Figure 2). Today, silicon solar panels have efficien-cies of 15-17%, and some types of high grade silicon material can convert 22% of the sun en-ergy into electricity. There is even a new class of solar cell that was developed primarily for space applications by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory in the United States. This new class of solar cells has efficiencies of 44%, and is projected to reach 50% by the end of the decade.

The other method of producing electricity from the sun uses mir-rors to concentrate the sunlight

Submitted by Raed Sherif, Consultant I, Well Surveillance Support Team

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on a “solar receiver”, which is a medium that has a circulat-ing fluid inside it. If the fluid in-side the solar receiver is water, this water will heat up and be-come steam, whose temperature and pressure can reach similar values to the steam produced in conventional steam power plants. The most common form of this technology uses synthetic oil as the fluid that heats up,

which then goes to a heat ex-changer to produce steam. After steam is produced, it enters into a steam turbine, which converts the steam’s thermal energy into mechanical energy that is used with a generator to produce electricity. After expansion in the steam turbine, steam loses its pressure and temperature, and goes into a condenser, where it is cooled down to become water.

The water is then pumped into the solar receiver or into the heat exchanger to become steam, and so on (see Figure 3). In this fashion, all what the solar energy has done is simply substitute the burning of fuel to produce steam by concentrated sun energy. This is typically referred to as concen-trated solar thermal power, and is abbreviated as CSP. In this sys-tem, the mirrors must track the sun at all times so that they can reflect the sun rays onto the solar receiver from sunrise until sunset. CSP has a total electric efficiency of 16-18%.

Both PV and CSP have been used commercially to produce electricity from the sun. Up un-til 2008, the cost of producing solar electricity from either op-tion was about the same, stand-ing at roughly US $4-5 million for each megawatt of capac-ity. Photovoltaic panels, how-ever, had a niche market that CSP could not tap into, which is rooftop applications. As some

European countries and Japan encouraged use of solar pho-tovoltaic for rooftop markets by giving special market pricing, demand for solar panels has soared, driving the installation of large-scale manufacturing facili-ties for solar cells and solar pan-els worldwide. Solar panel prices have seen sharp declines since 2008 (see Figure 4), driven by innovations in technology and in manufacturing techniques, and well as by economies of scale. Further, market entry by Chinese companies that received low cost financing to install large produc-tion facilities has also helped greatly in reducing the cost of the manufacture of solar panels. Today, solar electricity from PV is at a historic low, with solar panel prices under 60 cents per Watt, compared to $20 per Watt in the early 1980s. This has resulted in the ability to install a PV power plant for under US $2 million per megawatt of capacity. At these prices, electricity from photovol-taic is becoming competitive with

natural gas in some parts of the world. Further reduction in PV panel prices is expected to make solar panels reach grid parity by 2020.

CSP, on the other hand, has not seen much decline in prices. As such, total installed capacity worldwide of CSP remains un-der 3,000 megawatts, whereas installation for PV in 2013 alone has topped 32,000 megawatts. To put things in perspective, the installed capacity in 2013 alone exceeds the total installed electric capacity of Egypt. CSP, however, has the ability to store thermal energy, which is used to produce electricity from the sun during the evening. This ca-pability makes CSP attractive in some markets, including Kuwait and other Middle East countries. The Shagaya Project will have six hours of thermal energy stor-age. Further, CSP is also a po-tential player when only steam is needed; not for the production of electricity, but for the use of

steam itself in applications such as industrial process heating. A particularly interesting applica-tion for CSP that has emerged recently is the use of solar steam for enhanced oil recovery (EOR). Currently, there are two projects that utilize solar steam for EOR, one in California and one in Oman. This application is prom-ising, as it provides a means for extracting heavy oil without burning fuel to produce steam.

So given all this, how is one to de-termine whether solar energy is too expensive or not? The ques-tion of the economics of solar en-ergy really depends on the alter-native source of energy that solar energy will replace. Solar energy is still more expensive than natu-ral gas or coal, but for remote areas that use diesel generators, solar photovoltaic is actually the cheaper option. The econom-ics of solar energy needs to take into consideration that there is a large initial investment to procure and install the solar panels, but

An example of a large-scale solar farm.

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then the running cost, including the operation and maintenance, is very low, since there is no fuel to burn. Because of this, it typi-cally takes several years before a solar project becomes cash flow positive, but since the equipment is designed to last 25 years, the Return on Investment (ROI) for a solar project is typically in the 10-20% range, which is a good return for most investors.

How about suitability of solar en-ergy for Kuwait? Unlike the con-ventional wisdom, hotter climates are not really the best location for photovoltaic cells. In fact, all photovoltaic technologies drop in performance at higher ambient temperatures. Silicon panels lose about 4.6% of their efficiency for every ten degrees Celsius rise in ambient temperature above 25C. In other words, when it is 50C outside, a solar photovoltaic plant that was supposed to pro-duce 10 megawatts will only pro-duce 9 megawatts. Clearly this needs to be taken into account when designing a solar power plant, and basing all calculations for megawatt-hour produced on actual weather conditions of the particular location of the project.

In fact, solar projects must rely on a combination of satellite data that is collected over the course of 10-20 years, and corrected by a ground measurement sta-tion that measures the solar ir-radiation, temperature, relative humidity, and wind speed. Based on this data, the designer makes predictions for the output of the solar plant. Lack of reliable solar data is considered the biggest risk factor in any large scale so-lar project.

The other important factor in Kuwait is the handling of sand and soiling of solar panels or mirrors in the case of CSP. Studies and data collected from the op-eration of solar plants in a similar environment to Kuwait, e.g., UAE and Saudi Arabia, have shown that solar panels lose about 1-3% of their performance be-tween the cleaning cycles, if the panels are cleaned twice a week. In other words, operation of solar power plants in Kuwait is likely to require more regular cleaning of the solar panels, as opposed to solar plants in, say, Spain where cleaning can take place once a month. This factor does not add much to the operation and

maintenance costs for a solar project in Kuwait, thanks to the availability of low cost labor for this type of task.

Finally, it is important to rec-ognize that solar energy is best utilized in connection with other sources of energy to avoid prob-lems of intermittency and lack of sun during evening hours. In the KOC project, for example, the photovoltaic plant will be connected to a substation that is connected to the MEW grid. The PV plant output is synchronized with the substation so that when the panels are working, they are feeding electricity to the oilfield pumps, and when the panels are not producing electricity, the pumps are getting their electric-ity from the grid.

Solar projects in Kuwait will help reduce greenhouse gas emis-sions. The KOC project will eliminate the emission of more than 250,000 tons of CO2 over the project’s lifetime, saving over 500,000 barrels of oil. The pro-ject has been registered with the United Nations to be considered for Carbon Credits under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) established under the Kyoto Protocol, which recognizes projects that avoid emissions of greenhouse gases. Successful implementation of solar projects in Kuwait is key towards imple-menting more projects in the future that will help drive down emissions of greenhouse gases. The Shagaya Project and the KOC project are just the begin-ning of what is envisioned to be a greener and more environmen-tally friendly Kuwait.

The Man Who Moved GiantsKOC Bids Farewell to Captain Essam Sharaf

The Kuwaiti Digest recently sat down with Captain Essam Sharaf, an important member of KOC who joined the Company in 1986. As a Pilot for the Port Operations Team, Captain Sharaf is one of only a handful of individuals who has the required skill and experience to maneu-ver some of the world’s largest manmade objects - oil tankers - inside Kuwait’s ports. As he prepares to leave the Company, Captain Sharaf shared his story with us.

Background and BeginningsI joined KOC in 1986, but my sailing career began much ear-lier than that as an officer in the Egyptian Navy. That was fol-lowed by years working in the commercial fleet for various in-ternational companies, mainly Greek companies, where I sailed both cargo and passenger ships. I was sailing for some time before I joined KOC as a Pilot. In order to become a Pilot, you have to go through a number of different

steps. First, you need to get your certificate to work as a Second Officer, which is the lowest rank at sea. You spend some time sailing and then you go back to the academy to become certified as a Chief Officer. You go back to sea, gain some experience, and then come back to be certi-fied as a Master. After sailing as a Master, you can then become a Pilot, especially at a company like KOC where they want cer-tified Pilots with extensive ex-perience, because after all, the Company needs these pilots to maneuver oil tankers. When you become a Pilot, you are certified to sail any ship. Over the years, I attained all these certifications, and I graduated in 1970.

Sometimes people wonder what the difference is between a Master and a Pilot, or why these different classifications exist. I like to put it this way: The dif-ference between a Master and a Pilot is that the Master is like a person driving a car down the

highway, while the pilot is the one who parks the ship. Any Pilot can sail, but not every Master can do the job of the Pilot. It is not easy to deal with extremely large ships such as oil tankers, which are in fact some of the largest objects man has built. In the beginning, you start with small tankers and are limited to working only within onshore terminals. As you re-ceive more training and gain more experience, they gradually increase the size of the ships you can handle. It takes three to four years before you can become a Senior Pilot. In other words, Pilots must be Masters. Masters sail, but do not do the Pilot’s job. Pilots steer the boats in the port, and the port arranges for pilots to go on board for berthing op-erations. All the pilots are from KOC, but we deal with the vari-ous ports in Kuwait, such as Mina Ahmadi, Mina Shuaiba and Mina Abdullah. All Marine Operations are based from the Port Control of Mina Ahmadi.

The Sea BeckonsI was supposed to be an engi-neer, because during my time, that was the best job one could hope to have. When I was young, I enjoyed playing football, and I was smart enough to know that girls liked footballers or men in uniform. So, I figured if had both, I’d be doing pretty well for my-self. That’s what got me to join the Navy, but after I joined I knew that I didn’t want to be a Naval officer my whole life. I don’t like war, and I had to go through one. I never liked the idea of kill-ing people or being killed for no good reason. However, I’m glad I joined, because once I started sailing, I loved it. I knew I had to keep sailing in some way.

Memorable Times at SeaThe most fun I’ve had at sea was when I worked on passenger ships. In those days, I was Chief

Cpt. Essam Sharaf is pictured at the KOC Port.

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Officer, which is always a fun role to play as you spend much of your time interacting with guests on the cruise ship. Another in-teresting job I had was working with the oil rigs. That was a good experience. I also worked for a short time aboard a fishing boat, but I never liked it. It’s a tough job, and a smelly one, too.

One story that comes to mind is when I was the Chief Officer aboard a cargo ship. The Master had brought his wife onboard, and while we were sailing in the waters north of Spain, she went missing. Those waters are well known for being quite choppy and dangerous, so if she had gone overboard, her chances of surviving were very small. We spent hours searching, both on the ship and in the water, and eventually I found her on one of the ship’s small balconies. She apparently had gone out and was unable to come back in, as there was something wrong with the door. In such a rough sea, she had been gripping the rails, holding on for dear life. It took me about 10 minutes to unclasp her hands from the rails, and she was begging the whole time to be taken onshore. I don’t think she ever wanted to sail again af-ter that.

A Guest at My Own FuneralIn the early days, making calls from onboard the ship was not always possible. Later, thanks to satellite phones and improv-ing technologies, it could be done, though it was still very expensive. I remember one voy-age where I was sailing from Europe to South America. After a month, I called my family. After the second month, I called again, but it became difficult af-ter that. After a full year of sail-ing I signed off from the ship in former Yugoslavia. I boarded a plane for Cairo, where I planned to surprise my sister and take her with me to Alexandria where my family lives. She was working in a bank at the time and when I entered her office, I saw that she was dressed in all black. This made me very worried because what she was wearing indicat-ed that there must have been a death in the family. When she finally noticed me in her office,

she fainted. When she woke up, I asked her what had hap-pened, but she just told me that we needed to go to Alexandria immediately and that she would tell me on the way.

It turned out that someone had told my family that my ship had sunk and that I had died, which put me in the very interesting po-sition of being able to attend my own funeral. The whole situation felt like a movie. They were go-ing to have a funeral for me! I don’t know how this person ac-quired this wrong information, but I suppose it was understand-able because there was, in fact, another ship from my company that did sink, but it was not mine. Needless to say, my family was quite happy to see me. Imagine going there and saying, “Hello! I’m still alive!”

A Typical DayA typical day for a Pilot at KOC varies. Sometimes you have many operations that need to be completed, sometimes you don’t. Basically, a typical day goes like this: The pilot will get a call from the Harbor Master, who briefs the Pilot on the opera-tion that needs to be conducted. The Pilot will then go to the Small Boat Harbor, and a boat will take the Pilot to the ship. He’ll go on board and take over from the

Master, but we can’t exactly call it taking over because the Master is still in control. We can say that the Pilot is an advisor, but the Master has to follow the instruc-tions of the pilot. Tugs will come along to assist in the operation, you moor the ship, and then you go back to the office and wait for the next operation.

Pilots work in shifts from 6 am to 6 pm. That’s the day shift. They’ll take 24 hours off and come in the next day for the night shift, which is from 6 pm to 6 am. Then they take two days off. The average is four operations per shift, but sometimes there is a shortage, or people are sick, so that could be more. My record is 10 operations in one shift.

The job itself can be very stress-ful, especially if you feel fatigued. That’s why I believe it is very important that pilots have nec-essary medical checkups con-ducted regularly. It’s also very important for Pilots to remain physically active and have re-warding social lives so that they can perform their jobs properly.

A Dangerous JobI remember my time here in Kuwait during the invasion. I still remember being called early in the morning on the day of the in-vasion to come into work. There

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Cpt. Sharaf piloted hundreds of tankers like this to safety.

were some ships that needed to be vacated. To me, it started like any other day. I didn’t know that the country had actually been invaded, but of course I found out when I got to work. You can imagine the chaos and confusion that prevailed at the time. Many people were fleeing the country, and in fact many were already away on their summer holidays.

At my apartment block in Salmiya, everyone had left except for five families. The complex my family and I lived in was the only very large building on the Gulf Road at the time, and the Iraqis wanted us out so they could oc-cupy it. Part of their tactics of in-timidation included shooting up the windows from the front side of the building. On the day they did this, my daughter was about one meter away from the win-dow. I heard the shooting and knew it was very close, and be-fore I could do anything I saw the bullets shattering the windows and piercing the curtains before hitting the cement walls, causing them to ricochet and spread de-bris around. I immediately leapt to where she was and covered her with my body, where I saw a bullet miss her head by just one centimeter. I kept that bullet and gave it to my daughter, which she still carries in her pocket.

At some point during the inva-sion, I was unlucky enough to be arrested by the Iraqis after they found out I worked for KOC. They wanted me to run the port, but I refused to cooperate with them. This led to us being placed in a camp in the desert with very little food and very little water. The Iraqis regularly threatened me by saying they were going to send us to Baghdad to be used as human shields. I told them that I did not care, that they could do whatever they wanted as long as they set my family free. At that point my children were in a very dangerous state. I really thought that it was possible they could die at any time. Eventually, they did set us free, and after the hard-ships we endured during the in-vasion, we decided it was best for my family to leave the country for some time, so they resettled in the US.

Danger on the job was not lim-ited to my experiences during the invasion. As you may know, there were a number of acts of sabotage that were occurring inside Kuwait during the 1980s. One of these acts of sabotage included the bombing of an LPG (Liquefied Petroleum Gas) tank inside a port. The whole port, and even buildings in Fahaheel around the port had to be evacuated. Everyone was evacuated, except the Pilots. That was in 1988. There was another incident in which a bomb was placed on one of the artificial sea islands which tankers used. Well, the tanker didn’t come at the expected time and the bomb was ineffective.

Close Calls and a Clean RecordThe more time you spend on the job, the more stories you eventu-ally will have. Many of these sto-ries come from my time training other Pilots. I remember one par-ticular incident where I was train-ing a pilot and letting him steer the ship so that we could berth the ship to a buoy, also known as a Single Point Mooring (SPM). This was a kind of test for him, and I had already noticed that he had given a number of wrong orders. We were approaching this SPM very fast, and there were hoses held by the barge in the water just ahead, in ad-dition to ropes held by the boat.

There was no place to escape, there were tugs and other boats around us, a barge… I realized the ship could never stop in time and there was no way to escape, so I told him I was taking over. I told the tugs to let go of the line, otherwise the boat would be squeezed between the SPM. I told the other boats to escape away, and I was swinging hard to port to avoid the line ahead. I had a look down and I saw the barge just below the bulbous bow. The trainee was shaking. At that point he asked me: “What should I do?” I told him to close his eyes so he could avoid seeing the damage. But there was no damage. We were lucky enough to avoid a very close call, and if you stretched your arm out, you could have touched the SPM. That was something I will never forget.

In 1989, after 48 hours of very rough seas and the inability to berth any tanker, the Manager called and asked me to berth any ship I could. The alternative was to shutdown, which would be more costly than any damage that might occur. He explained that berthing any of the two tank-ers currently anchored would be enough, adding that he would accept any damage if it occurred. One of the tankers was 150,000 MT and the other was 400,000

Cpt. Sharaf receives a token of appreciation during his farewell ceremony.

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MT, which is more than the maxi-mum capacity of the North Pier. I told him I would berth both.

My plan was to berth the big-ger one against the wind and tide to Berth 12, which is easier than berthing the smaller one to Berth 11 following the wind and tide, which is very difficult. On my way, the Harbor Master told me to berth the smaller tanker to Berth 12, and that would be all. That wasn’t my initial plan, but I berthed her safely anyway. When the Harbor Master realized I had done it without incident, he asked me to berth the larger tanker to Berth 11, which is re-ally short for such a large ship. In addition, following the wind and tide and having a ship already berthed at Berth 12 made this a big challenge.

Going aboard the CBT (Clean Ballast Tanks) tanker, I found that the Master had deballasted all her tanks, which made the ship feel like a balloon. She started drifting very fast to the south, despite my intention of swing-ing her as north as I could. As I made the final approach she was approaching at a 90 de-gree angle between 11 and12 without any swing to port (left side). With a speed of four knots, I had to stop the engine and kept the wheel hard to port, but no change. I asked the forward tug to pull and the aft tug to push, but still no change. I had to ask for full ahead to swing her, and she started to swing very slowly. The Master was so worried when he heard the alarm sounded from the jetty (expecting major damage) that he declared the berth should be abandoned.

I had a trainee Pilot with me who told me that he was going to have a heart attack. I said, “Me too. But today I am going to make history. If I berth her safely they will remember this forever. If not, the damage will be huge and they will never forget me.” Well, she swung beautifully. Then I stopped the engine, asked for a double ring (alerting the engine to respond quickly and with max power), and went max speed astern. Believe it or not, she went alongside without any help from the tugs, and all of the shore gang returned clapping their

hands. Over the radio, the berth supervisor told me how great a berthing it was, and I replied, “Yes, I meant to do it that way.” I don’t think it’s possible for any-one to convince me to ever try to do something like that again.

Despite the dangers that you face on this job on a daily ba-sis, I am very proud to say that I have completed 6,666 opera-tions for KOC without incident, thank God. Sometimes I would be called from home because there were important operations that needed to be done. There were Pilots available, but they couldn’t do it. I was the only one capable of conducting some of the Ship to Ship operations. This is an operation where the ship does not go to terminal, but to another ship. Sometimes this had to be done at night, and I have done this many times. In fact, I was the only one to do this with two VLCCs (Very Large Crude Carrier).

Pilots are the ones who maneu-ver some of the largest man-made objects on Earth. It’s a tough job, and in order to be a Pilot, one has to be a decision maker. Sometimes you only have seconds to decide. I always say that being a Pilot is easy, but being a good Pilot is something that is very hard to do. It takes a long time to get to this stage. You have to really live for this job if you’re going to do it. I have

always believed that in order to do a job well, you have to love it. You have to truly love whatever it is you do in order to be happy. One of the greatest compliments I ever received was from a Pilot who later went on to become a Team Leader. He said, “Essam, I love watching you work. It looks like you are conducting a symphony.”

Leaving KOCIf it were up to me, I wouldn’t be leaving KOC, but as I turn 65, I am contractually obligated. In Japan, Pilots start training over the age of 60. It’s very normal to have a Pilot there who is 80 or above. At 65, I feel I am more fit than many Pilots who are 45. But, these are the rules. It’s dif-ficult when you hear your Team Leader say: “When we have a difficult job, we’ll always remem-ber you.” Here I am!

In life, everyone has a start and end to their role. I can say that I feel happy by leaving a good generation to take over. Many Pilots here at KOC have referred to me as their brother, some of the younger ones view me as a father figure. I’m very proud of that. Work will continue with or without me, and the only thing I wish is for more Kuwaitis to take over. KOC is building a large fleet of tugs and boats, and I en-courage the Company to seek out Kuwaitis for these positions.

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Shale Gas and Kuwait’s Oil FutureOutlook

A revolution in oil and gas pro-duction technologies is changing the face of the oil and gas world. In just a few short years, industry leaders have reconsidered the potential - and profitability - of overlooked sources of energy such as shale gas. In the United States, for example, oil and gas companies are tapping new re-serves which have been previ-ously thought impossible to drill for. In Kuwait, the outlook on gas has changed from it being con-sidered an unwanted byproduct and waste which was burned off in the quest for oil to it having the potential to meet Kuwait’s national energy needs.

Why has the outlook on hy-drocarbons such as shale gas changed? The reasons behind this shift in attitude and the future

potential of gas is examined in this recent interview with Ahmad Al-Eidan, KOC’s Exploration Group Manager.

Why is it important to search for shale gas in Kuwait?

Shale gas is considered one of the most important sources of energy on the international level. As per the strategy of KOC, exploring for shale gas in Kuwait is of great importance for the country, as it will under-pin Kuwait’s economic position on international energy markets. Moreover, shale gas is a clean fuel that helps reduce environ-mental contamination; it is even used as a fuel source in drinking water distillation stations. And,

on the medium term, the cost of shale gas is lower than natural gas and oil distillates.

How do oil and gas pro-duction companies drill for shale gas?

The shale layer, which is rich in organic substances that produce gas, is considered a resource and reservoir of hydrocarbons. Shale gas is extracted through the use of modern technologies such as the horizontal drilling of rocks by using a mixture of high pressure water mixed with sand and chemical substances to crack open gas-rich rocks. Such technologies are distinguished by their high efficiency and ac-curacy, which helps reduce the cost of production. Experts be-lieve that in the future, the cost of

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extracting shale gas will be less than that of extracting traditional gas.

Reports conducted on opera-tions which extract shale gas through the use of hydraulic fracking technology affirm that such operations require five mil-lion gallons of water for each well. Companies that work in this field are confronted by the prob-lem of using such vast quantities of water. Potential shale layers of high priority are identified by analyzing and studying the infor-mation available about oilfields and through 3D seismic studies. Also, the geological information regarding the geochemical char-acteristics, the internal pressures and the registers of wells are as-sessed to help in extracting shale gas. Through analytic studies, the competency of these layers are identified and estimates are made to check the viability of ap-plying horizontal drilling and hy-draulic fracturing technologies.

What are the benefits of shale gas?

In the past, natural gas was con-sidered a bothersome waste as-sociated with oil production. In addition, it was disposed of by burning or releasing into the at-mosphere without any treatment, as the value of oil was considered above everything else, especially because oil was easy to trans-port and use as a fuel. Shale gas has several environmental posi-tives on its side, including the fact that it reduces gas burning operations, thereby significantly reducing environmental pollu-tion. Also, by using gas as a fuel in many international plants and power stations, the volume of CO2 emissions have reduced significantly. This, in turn, has helped in lowering the impact of environmental pollution. Shale

gas is a source of clean energy, although it may influence the salty water in the deep layers of Kuwait; however, the production technology used at these res-ervoirs have very little negative influence on the environment. In other countries, hydrocarbon reservoirs are located near layers rich in drinking water. Extracting these hydrocarbons from those sources risks contaminating the drinking water. But in Kuwait, hy-drocarbon reservoirs are located at extreme depths while drinking water is located in shallow lay-ers. Therefore, their extraction does not negatively influence the drinking water.

Can you highlight some of the duties which the Exploration Group shoulders?

The Exploration Group was es-tablished in 1995 and immedi-ately began implementing one of the world’s largest 3D seis-mic surveys projects. The project

required tremendous effort to analyze the geological and geo-physical information made avail-able by these surveys.

In 2002/2003, KOC defined its 2020/2030 Strategy, and the Exploration Group played a large part in this vision. The Company also allotted long-term goals to increase oil and gas reserves and allocated a clear role for the Group in achieving this strategy. Since the day of its establish-ment, the Exploration Group was tasked with achieving some of the Company’s largest goals, which included exploring for and iden-tifying new reserves so that the Company could start new pro-duction operations. Accordingly, the group conducted several elaborate studies to estimate the geological layers in new areas and explore them. This diligent effort led to amazing discover-ies in Kuwait, particularly North Kuwait, as huge quantities of gas and light oil have been added to the country’s reserves.

Ahmad Al-Eidan, Exploration Group Manager at KOC

After succeeding in fulfilling most of the Company’s initial goals, the group needed to allot new goals which fell under the 2030 Strategy. These goals include:

• Increasing probable oil pro-duction to 750,000 by 2030.

• Increasing probable gas pro-duction to 1.5 billion cubic feet by 2030.

The Exploration Group also has a number of multiple geologi-cal goals that target the shallow Cenozoic layers, the layers of the Mesozoic era and the layers of Paleozoic era along the land and marine border of Kuwait. There are also attempts to explore tra-ditional and untraditional goals. Moreover, the group is keen on interacting positively with other KOC Groups to explore new mechanisms which can convert discovered fields into producing fields by reducing the period of

time needed to convert explo-ration into production from 18 years to eight years.

Due to the importance of seis-mic surveys in exploration, the traditional analogue technique was converted to a digital tech-nique in 2003, and these digital techniques were used in seismic surveys in 2010/2011. The latest

seismic surveys also helped in studying and assessing the new exploration areas and have led to excellent discoveries that will hopefully help achieve the goals of the 2030 Strategy.

This interview with Ahmad Al-Eidan first appeared in KPC World.

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KOC Comes Closer to Realizing 2030 Strategy Objectives

Report

Kuwait Oil Company is currently in the process of implement-ing a number of projects which will help the Company realize its 2030 Strategy objectives. These projects are aimed at develop-ing Kuwait’s oilfields in the North, applying new oil extraction tech-niques, constructing three new Gathering Centers, a Booster Station to enhance gas pressure and an associated facility which will be used to inject associated water. In addition, investment in KOC’s human potential is ongo-ing and plays a crucial role in the future success of the Company.

In a recent interview with KPC World, a sister publication of The Kuwaiti Digest, KOC CEO Hashem Hashem discussed the progress being made throughout the Company in terms of real-izing its 2030 Strategy goals. In North Kuwait, for example, ef-forts are being made to increase production to one million barrels per day by 2018. In order for this to become a reality, how-ever, a number of new projects need to be completed. These projects include the construction of three new Gathering Centers (29, 30 and 31), a new Booster Station (BS-132) to reinforce gas

pressure, and facilities which are intended to aid in the injection of associated water.

The CEO went on to say that in South and East Kuwait, the Company is implementing pro-jects that are tasked with pre-serving the pressure of Wara Reservoir. KOC is also in the pro-cess of drilling new wells while also taking measures to pre-serve the productivity of Burgan. In West Kuwait, the Company is preparing to make use of a new Booster Station and Gathering Center (BS-171 and GC-16).

KOC is working on a number of is-sues which will help the Company achieve its strategic goals. These include:

• Updating the second phase of a program to develop the Jurassic reservoirs in North Kuwait with the aim of in-creasing the production of free gas, light oil and con-densates from non-tradition-al reservoirs.

• Installing new pipelines to transport fuel to the power stations in Subiya, Doha and Zour.

• Implementing a project aimed at expanding ma-rine services, in addition to upgrading the marine fleet and establishing new marine facilities.

Hashem Hashem, KOC CEO

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• Execution of the New Ahmadi Hospital Project, which is nearing completion. The hos-pital will have capacity for 300 beds (expandable in the future).

• Plans for the construction of the Sheikh Ahmad Al-Jaber Exhibition Center for Oil and Gas.

• A new housing project in Ahmadi will see the construc-tion of about 166 houses for Company employees.

• Plans to establish a num-ber of electrical substations throughout KOC’s areas of operation.

• Plants to install security fences around sensitive installations throughout the Company.

In regard to KOC’s future plans to produce natural and associ-ated gas, Hashem maintained that KOC produces two types. The first is associated gas, which accompanies oil when it is drilled. This associated gas is separated at the Gathering Centers. The second type is free gas, which is produced from the Jurassic fields in North Kuwait.

“It is known that gas is generally much friendlier on the environ-ment when burning it as a fuel source at power stations. This is because when it is used as a fuel source, much less CO2 and sul-fur oxide emissions are gener-ated in comparison to other fuel sources, such as oil. In addition, it is more economical to use gas as a fuel. With this in mind, KOC has developed a plan to explore, develop and produce free gas in order to meet the needs of the lo-cal market. This plan is based on developing the reserves of free gas, as well as the light oil and

condensates from the Jurassic res-ervoirs in North Kuwait. The com-pany also plans to drill for new gas reserves through an intensive exploration plan,” Hashem said.

In the first phase of the develop-ment of the Jurassic reservoirs, Hashem maintained that the cur-rent expectations for production are 145 million cubic feet of free gas per day. This, he said, would be in addition to 55,000 BPD of light oil. The CEO also said that he expected the Company to fi-nalize the second phase of the development program by 2017, adding that by then the projected production should reach 600 mil-lion cubic feet of free gas per day, in addition to 200,000 BPD of light oil and condensates.

“We are currently studying the de-velopment plan and program of the third phase, which is expected to be fulfilled by 2020 in order to increase total productivity of free gas from the Jurassic reservoirs in North Kuwait to one billion cubic feet, in addition to 300,000 bpd of light oil,” he said.

In regard to exploration op-erations, Hashem said that the Company expects to have daily production of 1.5 billion cubic feet of gas by 2030, whereas the amount of associated gas de-pends mainly on the amount of oil produced at that time. Efforts to reduce gas flaring throughout Company operations has been a major success, as the percentage has been reduced to a mere 1%. However, Hashem maintained that the Company is studying the possibility of reducing this num-ber even further.

Environmental Efforts

As for strategic plans which have been adopted to preserve the en-vironment, the KOC CEO stressed

that the Company pays special attention to environmental pro-tection. That is why, he said, the Company has adopted a number of environmental programs which include the following:

• The adoption of an integrat-ed environmental program in the HSE system. KOC has is-sued a number of bylaws and procedures to help preserve the environment and protect it from negative effects which are a result of exploration and production operations for oil and gas.

• The execution of a long-term plan to reduce the level of gas flaring to a minimum by implementing a number of projects aimed at preserving the environment.

• Establishing a database for the pollutants which are emit-ted from various sources throughout the Company. This project is aimed at cal-culating the amount of emis-sions and assessing their in-fluence on public health and the environment. It is also tasked with estimating the ef-ficiency of carrying out such projects.

• KOC signed a memorandum of understanding with the Environment Public Authority in 2009 to protect air quality. The memorandum maintains that efforts be made to moni-tor air quality throughout KOC’s zones of operations and the surrounding areas. The Company has installed six stations throughout the country to assess air pollut-ants with the end goal of is-suing periodic reports on air quality, and more monitoring stations will be constructed in the future.

• The implementation of a pro-ject which is aimed at treat-ing polluted soil through-out the Company’s areas of operations.

• •A project in collaboration with the concerned authori-ties to treat oil lakes which were caused during the 1990/91 invasion.

• The application of an inte-grated and comprehensive Waste Management Project.

• Maintaining current and es-tablishing several new nature reserves and artificial lakes which are home to desert plants and wildlife.

Investing in Human Potential

In regard to manpower and the ways in which KOC seeks to de-velop the skills and performance of its employees, Hashem made clear that the Company diligently seeks to improve the performance and efficiency of the work its em-ployees engage in. Various train-ing programs, which include field training and specialized courses, both inside Kuwait and abroad, are utilized for the benefit of KOC employees. In addition, KOC ac-tively participates in international oil and gas conferences so that employees may stay current with the latest in oil and gas informa-tion and technology.

“Because KOC is a large Company with many different and varying work designations, we have classified jobs into groups called “Career Families” with the aim of improving efficiency and providing the highest possible lev-el of development. The Company has nearly 100 “Career Families” whose personnel are continu-ously undergoing development

29 TheKuwaitiDigest

under the direction of the Training and Career Development Group. We also have programs which seek to share the experiences of senior employees with new re-cruits. These programs specialize in technical, administrative and industrial areas,” the CEO said. In addition, KOC provides prom-ising employees with scholarships to some of the best universities in the world so that they may further develop their skills and areas of expertise. For example, KOC re-cently sent a number of employ-ees to Harvard University so that they could acquire the necessary skills which will help the Company tackle future challenges.

KOC is keen to learn from the experiences of its many con-sultants and specialists through

the Company’s “Best Practices Program.” Part of the goal of this program is to impart knowledge on new Kuwaiti recruits while en-hancing collaboration with other oil sector players, both locally and regionally. In addition, co-operation with the Kuwait Institute for Scientific Research has led to a host of collaborations over the years which have benefitted both institutions greatly.

The Way Forward

Constructive collaboration and a concerted effort to share informa-tion, technology and best prac-tices throughout the Company’s various departments is required for KOC in order to achieve its 2030 Strategy objectives. The Company faces a host of new

challenges that an increasingly younger generation of KOC em-ployees will face. Exploration and production challenges are many, and it is of the utmost importance for KOC’s senior leadership to ensure that new recruits are pro-vided with a wealth of knowledge which will aid them in their effort to move the Company forward into the future. A spirit of team-work and collaboration must pre-vail, and regular communication between various departments is imperative for the continued suc-cess of the Company.

Construction for KOC’s Small Boat Harbors Project Begins

New Projects

KOC recently celebrated the lay-ing of the foundation stone for the Small Boat Harbors Project which is being executed by the Turkish-based STFA Company. The event was attended by Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Minister of Oil and Minister of State for National Assembly Affairs Dr. Ali Al-Omair. Turkish President Abdullah Gul was pre-viously in Kuwait in 2009 to cele-brate KOC’s 75th Anniversary as a special guest of His Highness the Amir Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah. Advisor to the Diwan of His Highness the Prime Minister Sheikh Dr. Salem Al-Jaber also attended the event along with several top officials within the oil sector.

CEO Hashem S. Hashem deliv-ered a speech on the occasion in which he commended the Turkish President, noting that his presence at the ceremony rep-resented the strong partnership between the two countries.

Hashem maintained that the Small Boat Harbors Project con-stitutes part of a broader project aimed at upgrading marine fa-cilities. He further revealed that the total cost of the project is ap-proximately $1 billion and that work is due to be completed by October 2016.

During his speech, the KOC CEO maintained that the Small Boat Harbors Project will include the development and expansion of the existing Mina Al-Ahmadi Port and the building of a new port at the site with onshore and offshore facilities. This includes the construction of new break-waters and other necessary fa-cilities, such as a new building which will be home to simulation programs which are aimed at training and enhancing the skills of marine personnel and Port Traffic Control.

31 TheKuwaitiDigest

“Through this partnership with one of the leading Turkish com-panies in the field,” the CEO said, “KOC hopes that the project will represent a beacon of hope in strengthening cooperation and opening new horizons in the best interest of our two countries and in the realization of the strategic objectives of our Company.”

Meanwhile, STFA Chairman Alb Taskents expressed hope that the project would further boost the longstanding ties between the two countries and asserted his keenness to ensure that the project is completed within the required timeframe and in ac-cordance with HSE standards.

“I think one of the most reward-ing things about being a contrac-tor is that we occasionally have the opportunity to help unite and strengthen the ties between two nations. In this case, the state of Kuwait and the Republic of Turkey already enjoy a long history of cooperation and friendship. We hope our efforts today will only reinforce this brotherhood and

add but another important mile-stone in our economic and cul-tural relations,” Taskents said.

Taskents went on to say that de-spite its name, the Small Boat Harbors Project was in fact very far from anything “small.”

“Our project is split between two main locations, the North Harbor and the South Harbor, which are approximately seven kilometers apart. The scope of the project consists of dredging the harbor basin, constructing piers, quay walls, pontoons and construction of building facilities, which in-clude electro/mechanical works and ICT systems,” Taskents said, adding, “A four kilometer long breakwater will be constructed to protect the harbors by using 2.5 million tons of quarried rock material and 26,000 special protective concrete units called “Accropodes.”

In addition, 2.5 kilometers of quay walls will be built to ac-commodate KOC’s future ma-rine fleet. This construction will

require 12,000 concrete blocks beneath the sea. In order to serve KOC’s larger marine assets, both harbors will be dredged down to seven meters and will include a state of the art maintenance shipyard which includes a ship lift with a capacity to serve three vessels at the same time.

Taskents concluded his speech by expressing his gratitude to KOC for entrusting STFA with the responsibility of undertaking this important project. He assured all present that STFA would com-plete the project in a timely fash-ion and that his company will up-hold all of KOC’s quality, health and safety standards.

The Small Boat Harbors Project falls in line with KOC’s efforts of upgrading its marine facili-ties. The project is of significant importance to the Company and will do much in the way of realizing KOC’s 2030 Strategy objectives.

KOC officials and the visiting Turkish delegation inaugurate the project.

Tuesday Talk: Knowledge Sharing Process

Internal Report

Knowledge Management (KM) means different things to different people. There have been many discussions on the need for stand-ard definitions and frameworks, and although those discussions have been fruitful in terms of mak-ing better sense of knowledge management and how it should work in an organizational context, it has not produced any standard framework. Instead, many KM ex-perts are of the opinion that there shouldn’t be any standard from a compliance perspective that limits the creativity or the innovative spirit of the organization.

In essence, successful KM initia-tives have been successful mainly due to evolutionary and culturally sensitive initiatives. Therefore, the Knowledge Management Team at KOC is looking at Knowledge Management from a very holistic and culturally sensitive perspective. This means the approach needs to be sown and seeded here. It needs to be nurtured, nursed, nourished, ploughed and plowed, so that it grows sensing the culture at play.

Therefore, while designing inter-ventions to facilitate knowledge sharing, it’s important and perhaps customary to design it to suit the cur-rent culture. Building upon the cul-ture of conversation in the region,

the Knowledge Management Team has successfully introduced a monthly knowledge sharing pro-cess called Tuesday Talk. The ob-jective of this process is to enable knowledge flow across the organi-zation by providing a platform for knowledge sharing and learning.

The rationale behind Tuesday Talk is that there are many KOC em-ployees who have deep knowledge and expertise in certain areas who are willing to share their experi-ence and knowledge with other colleagues. Tuesday Talk was cre-ated in order utilize that untapped potential. In the process, we will create a network of likeminded people, get connected, learn from

Submitted by the Knowledge Management Team

33 TheKuwaitiDigest

each other and move in the direc-tion of transforming KOC into a learning organization, admired for its knowledge sharing practices and innovative capabilities.

Tuesday Talk was started as an initiative from the Management Support Group, and there have been several knowledge shar-ing events held over the past six months. Some of the themes that the Tuesday Talk events have touched on include the follow-ing: Effective Communication, Six Thinking Hats, GreenMile, TRIZ, etc.

Speaking on the occasion of the 5th Tuesday Talk, Knowledge Management Team Leader Engr. Rima Al-Awadhi reiterated the need for such platforms in order to allow for the free flow of knowledge and expertise across the organization. She emphasized the significance of getting people to come together to have an open and creative conver-sation, network, learn from each other and innovate.

While the talks run as free flowing and loosely controlled events, top-ics and facilitators are prioritized by seeking consensus through an audience poll when called for. It is preferred to use the Open Space Technology (OST) format, which means that talks/topics are initiated and operated on the ba-sis of a crowdsourcing model, where speakers are self-nominat-ed through the respective Team Leaders. Generally, Tuesday Talk is scheduled for an hour, every month on any Tuesday. Once the knowledge sharing is complete, the presentations are uploaded onto the Tuesday Talk website under the Knowledge Management Team site for future reference. Anyone who has access to the KOC in-tranet can access the Tuesday Talk website. A Tuesday Talk session in progress.

Travel

Cape Town, South Africa

35 TheKuwaitiDigest

Are you still in Kuwait this summer? Are you planning on traveling soon, but just don’t know where to go? Why not consider Cape Town, arguably one of Africa’s most beautiful cities? Cape Town is a distinctive city with one of the most stunning natural landscapes on earth, as it rests on a dramatic coastline of pristine white beaches that is overlooked by the iconic flat-topped Table Mountain.

Cape Town is known to make its many visitors simply fall in love with it. For some it is the view of Camps Bay and the glistening ocean as you crest Kloof Nek that’s the draw. For others it’s the sound of the muezzin’s call to prayer wafting over Bo Kaap on a misty morning, or the smell of a fresh espresso in gritty

Woodstock, or the sensation of sand between the toes while walking with penguins on Boulder’s Beach.

With sights as diverse as Robben Island, where Nelson Mandela was imprisoned for many years, and Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens, with its abundant range of African flora, Cape Town’s attractions equally capture the natural world and the country’s fascinating history. Add in a string of stunning beaches and opportunities to see African wildlife and you have the recipe for the vacation of a lifetime. Don’t forget that Cape Town has the best food and drink in the country, from hip new restaurants to classic bistros and African dishes.

Cape Town is also the hub of a cutting-edge art scene, with new galleries in the Woodstock area showcasing the works of up-and-coming artists. There’s also a vibrant and diverse music scene, pumping nightlife and a lively gay culture. In this section you’ll find listings for everything from rock venues to contemporary galleries.

No visit to Cape Town is complete without a tour of the Cape Winelands. Discovering the farms there and phenomenal food along the way is one of the greatest pleasures of the Mother City’s hinterlands. Also not to be missed are the windswept charms of the West Coast, the Whale Route’s winding roads, and the spectacular natural beauty of the Garden Route.

HP recently announced an ambitious plan to use memristors to build new types of computers. Memristors were invented in 2008 by HP as a fourth fundamental component to join the resistor, capacitor and inductor. Memristors have the po-tential to revolutionize computing because they can be used to both build gates, the building blocks of processors, and also act as long-term storage. By 2016, the company plans to have memristor-based DIMMs, which will combine the high storage den-sities of hard disks with the high performance of traditional DRAM. Officials form HP said that their new computers will electrons for processing, pho-tons for communication, and ions for storage. The electrons are found in conventional silicon proces-sors, and the ions are found in the memristors. The photons are present because the company wants to use optical interconnects in the system, built using silicon photonics technology. With silicon photonics, photons are generated on, and travel through, “cir-cuits” etched onto silicon chips, enabling conven-tional chip manufacturing to construct optical parts. This allows the parts of the system using photons to be tightly integrated with the parts using electrons.

Researchers at the University of California, Riverside have developed a three-dimensional, silicon-deco-rated, cone-shaped carbon-nanotube cluster archi-tecture for lithium ion battery anodes that could en-able charging of portable electronics in 10 minutes, instead of hours. Lithium ion batteries are the re-chargeable battery of choice for portable electronic devices and electric vehicles, but they present prob-lems. Batteries in electric vehicles are responsible for a significant portion of the vehicle mass, and the size of batteries in portable electronics limits the trend of down-sizing. Silicon is a type of anode ma-terial that is receiving a lot of attention because its total charge capacity is 10 times higher than com-mercial graphite based lithium ion battery anodes. Consider a packaged battery full-cell. Replacing the commonly used graphite anode with silicon an-odes will potentially result in a 63 percent increase of total cell capacity and a battery that is 40 percent lighter and smaller. Lithium ion batteries based on this novel architecture demonstrate a high revers-ible capacity and excellent cycling stability. The ar-chitecture demonstrates excellent electrochemical stability and irreversibility even at high charge and discharge rates, nearly 16 times faster than conven-tionally used graphite based anodes.

“Memristors” May Revolutionize Computers

Researchers Seek to Cut Down Recharge Times

Hi-Tech

37 TheKuwaitiDigest

Oil services company Schlumberger recently announced that it will introduce the first ever drilling service option that can map reservoirs at the same time. The company said its GeoSphere technology is a first for the industry. It gives operators an opportunity to examine reservoirs at the sub-surface layer during drilling. This long-awaited technology milestone commercialization now enables asset teams to seamlessly integrate the data provided by the reser-voir mapping-while-drilling service with other downhole measurements to optimize production and reservoir man-agement, Schlumberger officials from the Drilling and Measurements departments said. The service has been tested in more than 140 wells across the globe. A test in Northern Europe resulted in a production increase for an unnamed Schlumberger customer of more than 8,000 barrels of liquids per day. The GeoSphere technology re-veals features in subsurface beddings and fluid contacts at the reservoir scale to optimize well landing operations, steering capabilities and mapping of multiple boundaries using new deep-directional resistivity measurements ena-bled by proprietary real-time interpretation techniques. With a deep range of investigation that extends more than 100 ft from the wellbore, drilling teams can use the GeoSphere service to reduce drilling risk and accurately land wells, resulting in the elimination of pilot holes. In addition, the real-time reservoir mapping-while-drilling service enables the positioning of wells within target res-ervoirs, away from fluid boundaries, leading to increased reservoir exposure as well as allowing geoscientists to re-fine their seismic interpretation and geological and struc-tural models.

Schlumberger Unveils New Drilling and Mapping Technology

Using a type of human stem cell, Johns Hopkins research-ers say they have created a three-dimensional comple-ment of human retinal tissue in the laboratory, which includes functioning photoreceptor cells capable of re-sponding to light, the first step in the process of convert-ing it into visual images. The researchers say they have created a miniature human retina in a dish that not only has the architectural organization of the retina but also has the ability to sense light. Researchers say their work advances opportunities for vision-saving research and may ultimately lead to technologies that restore vision in people with retinal diseases. The achievement emerged from experiments with human induced pluripotent stem cells (iPS) and could, eventually, enable genetically engi-neered retinal cell transplants that halt or even reverse a patient’s march toward blindness. The iPS cells are adult cells that have been genetically reprogrammed to their most primitive state. Under the right circumstances, they can develop into most or all of the 200 cell types in the human body. In this case, the Johns Hopkins team turned them into retinal progenitor cells destined to form light-sensitive retinal tissue that lines the back of the eye. When the retinal tissue was at a stage equivalent to 28 weeks of development in the womb, with fairly mature photorecep-tors, the researchers tested these mini-retinas to see if the photoreceptors could in fact sense and transform light into visual signals. They did so by placing an electrode into a single photoreceptor cell and then giving a pulse of light to the cell, which reacted in a biochemical pattern similar to the behavior of photoreceptors in people exposed to light.

Human Stem Cells Used to Create Light-sensitive Retina in a Dish

5. Fasting Can Increase the Breakdown of Fat:

The first response of the body to fasting is the breaking down of glucose. When the store of glu-cose is exhausted, ketosis begins, which is the breakdown of fats to release energy.

6. Fasting Can Correct High Blood Pressure:

Fasting is one of the non-drug methods of reducing blood pressure because it can help re-duce the risk of atherosclerosis. Atherosclerosis is the clogging of arteries by fat particles. When you are fasting, glucose and fat stores are used to produce en-ergy. The metabolic rate is also reduced when fasting, and hor-mones such as adrenaline and noradrenaline are also reduced.

7. Fasting Promotes Weight Loss:

Fasting promotes weight loss by reducing stores of fat in the body. However, fasting is not a good

While many fast as a religious obligation, few truly understand the potential health benefits that fasting can provide. Fasting, if properly implemented, can pro-mote the elimination of toxins from the body, reduce blood sugar, decrease stores of fat and boost your immune system.

Below are 10 potential health benefits one can attain by fasting in a safe and healthy way:

1. Fasting Promotes Detoxification:

Processed foods contain many additives, and these additives can become toxins in the body. Most of these toxins are stored in fat, and fat is burnt during fast-ing, especially when it is a pro-longed fast.

2. Fasting Gives the Digestive System a Rest:

When fasting, the digestive or-gans rest. The normal physiolog-ic functions continue, especially

the production of digestive secre-tions, but at reduced rates. This exercise helps to maintain a bal-ance of fluids in the body.

3. Fasting May Resolve Inflammatory Responses:

Some studies have shown that fasting promotes resolution of inflammatory diseases and al-lergies. Examples of such inflam-matory diseases are rheumatoid arthritis, arthritis and skin dis-eases such as psoriasis. Some experts assert that fasting may promote the healing of inflam-matory bowel diseases such as ulcerative colitis.

4. Fasting Can Reduce Blood Sugar:

Fasting increases the breakdown of glucose so that the body can obtain energy. It also reduces the production of insulin, which rests the pancreas. Glucagon is pro-duced to facilitate the breakdown of glucose, and the outcome is a reduction in blood sugar.

Ramadan: The Benefits of FastingHealth

39 TheKuwaitiDigest

weight loss strategy. Reducing fat and sugar intake and increasing fruits and rest are better meas-ures to achieve weight reduction.

8. Fasting Promotes a Healthy Diet:

It has been observed that fasting reduces cravings for processed foods. It promotes a desire for natural foods, especially water and fruits.

9. Fasting Boosts Immunity:

Immunity can be boosted when an individual is on a balanced diet between fasts. The elimina-tion of toxins and the reduction in fat stores also helps the body. When individuals eat fruits to break a fast, they increase the body’s store of essential vitamins and minerals. Vitamins A and E are good antioxidants readily available in fruits. They help to boost immunity.

10. Fasting May Help to Overcome Addictions:

Some studies have shown that fasting can help addicts reduce cravings for nicotine, alcohol, caffeine and other substances. Although there are other regi-mens required to resolve addic-tions, fasting can play a role.

Despite the benefits, fasting has the potential to cause some negative side effects. Aside from dehydration, fasting may lead to headaches and can even trigger migraines in predisposed per-sons. It may worsen heartburn and peptic ulcer. Pregnant wom-en, nursing mothers, malnour-ished people, and individuals with cardiac arrhythmias, renal or liver problems are advised not to fast.

Fasting during Ramadan is a challenge in itself, and fasting during the middle of a Kuwaiti summer, when daylight hours can last up to 16 hours, is even more of a challenge. In order to ensure adequate nutrition so that you can continue to be in good health, follow these tips:

• Prior to Ramadan, a Muslim should always consult with a doctor about the safety of fasting in individual health circumstances.

• Even if you are generally healthy, recognize that fast-ing can take its toll. Plan your schedule and meals ahead of time in order to make sure you get the nutrients, hydra-tion, and rest that you need.

• Eat suhoor just prior to dawn. This morning meal is gener-ally recognized as the single most important meal of the day. Do not overeat, though. Focus on taking in foods that are rich in complex carbo-hydrates and protein, fruits or vegetables, and plenty of water. For example: an egg on whole-grain toast, a few crackers with peanut butter, some orange slices, and two glasses of water.

• During the hottest part of the day, stay in cool areas (in-doors or in the shade) and limit your physical activity. Rest if possible.

• Avoid overeating when breaking your fast at sunset. After a long period of fast-ing, you need to bring your fluids and blood sugar levels up without overdoing it.

• During the early evening, have a healthy and balanced dinner. Do not overeat, and be sure to drink a few more glasses of water.

• During the evening hours, resist the temptation to drink tea, coffee, and soda. When visiting friends or family, ask for glasses of water.

• Serve yourself, your family, and guests a dessert of fresh fruit and nuts, which are much healthier than choco-lates and candy.

• Sip on water throughout the evening. Aim for eight glasses by bedtime. To help you keep track, fill and refill a water bottle with a meas-ured amount of water, and be sure to finish it.

• Light exercise, such as walk-ing for 15-20 minutes, is best done in the evening hours.

• Avoid fried and spicy foods as they may cause heartburn or indigestion.

• Speak to your doctor about an appropriate multi-vitamin.

• Continue to brush and floss your teeth several times a day.

• Wash your hands regularly, and avoid those who cough or sneeze. This is important to prevent the spread of vi-ruses and bacteria which may cause illness.

• Quit smoking.

• Organize your schedule so that you get enough sleep.

“Six Sigma” has become a new buzzword in many organizations, and there are many examples of well-known pioneers like GE, Motorola, and others who have achieved phenomenal success by utilizing the Six Sigma practice. “Lean Six Sigma” has become a widely accepted best man-agement practice in the jour-ney of organizational excellence through breakthrough improve-ments in its process and product quality. This article seeks to bet-ter explain that practice and how it is being utilized at KOC.

In order to reap the benefits of Lean Six Sigma, KOC’s leader-ship decided to adopt this well-known initiative. A pilot exercise was initiated in one of the di-rectorates during 2010/11 and findings were presented to the Leadership Committee. Later on, the Leadership Committee assigned the responsibility to

deploy the Six Sigma program to the Management Support Group (MSG) for full-scale deployment.

MSG has worked out a Six Sigma Deployment Plan along with a deployment approach, key mile-stones, deliverables, roadmap, governance structure, etc. for process improvement through Six Sigma methodology and best practices at multiple directorates throughout KOC in a phased manner.

This article provides highlights of Lean Six Sigma fundamentals and key elements of the KOC deployment plan. Before moving further, a few concepts of Lean Six Sigma must be introduced in simple terms.

What is Six Sigma?

Six Sigma is a business manage-ment strategy for achieving sus-tainable improvements in prod-ucts and processes by minimizing

variation, defects, waste, etc. and thereby increasing customer sat-isfaction and ultimately resulting in expansion of business revenue and profitability.

Why is it termed “Six Sigma?” Sigma, or “∂” is actually a Greek term that represents standard deviation, which is a measure of variation in statistics. For exam-ple, when you buy coffee that’s nice and hot one day but luke-warm the next day - that’s vari-ation. Variation in products and services are a critical concern, as it affects customer satisfaction adversely. Imagine an insurance company promising to answer your query in about two to three weeks (indicating a lot of vari-ation in the process). That may have a large impact on your de-cision to do business with them.

The lower the variation, the low-er the value of standard devia-tion will be. This results in higher precision and consistent, better quality. A key challenge for qual-ity professionals is to improve the process by reducing the variation to such a degree that Six Sigma - or standard deviation of varia-tion - can be squeezed within the limits defined by the customer’s specifications.

The Six Sigma performance level refers to a near-perfect level of quality which equates to 3.4 de-fects per million opportunities.

Holistic Approach for Lean Six Sigma Deployment at KOC

Local Event

Submitted by the Quality Assurance TeamArticle prepared by Ashish Kumar Jain, Project Leader, Quality Assurance Team

41 TheKuwaitiDigest

The Sigma level is a quality met-ric that measures the level of performance of a process based on the number of Defects per Million Opportunities (DPMO) in that process.

DPMO Vs. Sigma Level

When calculating the Sigma performance level for a product or process, the DPMO metric is generally used. Because complex products like automobiles, air-craft, or computers have many more opportunities for defects than simple products like pencils and paperclips, DPMO was cre-ated to level the playing field and provide a fair comparison - often a problem within companies that provide a wide range of products and services.

DMAIC Process

DMAIC is a structured, closed-loop, team-oriented application of the scientific method for Six Sigma projects. This is a five-step Six Sigma process that uses or-ganized data to drive decisions. The five Six Sigma steps applied to specific improvement projects are: Define, Measure, Analyze, Improve and Control.

Lean Vs. Six Sigma

There has been much discussion about the relationship between Six Sigma and Lean Methods. There is a difference in focus. Six Sigma focuses on defect reduc-tion through variability reduction, while the lean method focuses on material and information to increase process velocity and ef-ficiency. Hence, Six Sigma and lean methods are complemen-tary process improvement mod-els, not competing approaches. When used together, they are a powerful combination that sup-ports all facets of process im-provement – enhancing quality, cost, speed and responsiveness.

Key Differentiators of Lean Six Sigma

Six Sigma combines proven tools and methods in a new way. The features that set ‘Lean Six Sigma’ apart from previous process & quality improvement initiatives are:

• Six Sigma starts with an em-phasis on bottom-line per-formance and cost reduc-tion, building on the “Cost of Quality” (or “Cost of Poor Quality) concept.

• An increased emphasis on strong and passionate man-agement leadership and support for sustained quality improvements.

The Six Sigma performance level refers to a near-perfect level of quality which equates to 3.4

defects per million opportunities. The Sigma level is a quality metric that measures the level of

performance of a process based on the number of Defects per Million Opportunities (DPMO) in

that process.

DPMO Vs. Sigma Level

When calculating the Sigma performance level for a product or process, the DPMO metric is

generally used. Because complex products like automobiles, aircraft, or computers have many

more opportunities for defects than simple products like pencils and paperclips, DPMO was

created to level the playing field and provide a fair comparison - often a problem within

companies that provide a wide range of products and services.

DMAIC Process

DMAIC is a structured, closed-loop, team-oriented application of the scientific method for Six

Sigma projects. This is a five-step Six Sigma process that uses organized data to drive decisions.

The five Six Sigma steps applied to specific improvement projects are: Define, Measure,

Analyze, Improve and Control.

USL LSL TV

10 05 15

Process A

Process B

Lean Vs. Six Sigma

There has been much discussion about the relationship between Six Sigma and Lean Methods.

There is a difference in focus. Six Sigma focuses on defect reduction through variability

reduction, while the lean method focuses on material and information to increase process

velocity and efficiency. Hence, Six Sigma and lean methods are complementary process

improvement models, not competing approaches. When used together, they are a powerful

combination that supports all facets of process improvement – enhancing quality, cost, speed and

responsiveness.

Key Differentiators of Lean Six Sigma

Six Sigma combines proven tools and methods in a new way. The features that set ‘Lean Six

Sigma’ apart from previous process & quality improvement initiatives are:

• Six Sigma starts with an emphasis on bottom-line performance and cost reduction,

building on the "Cost of Quality" (or "Cost of Poor Quality) concept.

• An increased emphasis on strong and passionate management leadership and support for

sustained quality improvements.

• Another element is intense focus on the customer. Six Sigma means exceeding customer

expectations, not merely meeting internal standards, so the process starts with

understanding what customers really want.

• Six Sigma drives activity with the rigorous use of performance metrics, including a clear

objective and DPMO target. Six Sigma subscribes to the philosophy that "what gets

measured gets done."

• Six Sigma has a process orientation rather than a functional bias. Product and service

processes are analyzed and improved systematically through the DMAIC process across

their entire span.

DEFINE

MEASURE

ANALYSE IMPROVE

CONTROL

• Another element is intense focus on the customer. Six Sigma means exceeding customer expectations, not merely meeting internal standards, so the process starts with understanding what customers really want.

• Six Sigma drives activity with the rigorous use of perfor-mance metrics, including a clear objective and DPMO target. Six Sigma subscribes to the philosophy that “what gets measured gets done.”

• Six Sigma has a process ori-entation rather than a func-tional bias. Product and ser-vice processes are analyzed and improved systematically through the DMAIC process across their entire span.

• Like TQM, the foundation of Six Sigma is the work of Deming, Juran, Shigeo Shingo, and a collection of Japanese quality improve-ment techniques popular-ized decades ago. Statistical Process Control and Design of Experiments are core tools.

• A unique support infrastruc-ture provides coordination, guidance, and technical ex-pertise to process improve-ment teams. Project lead-ership by “Champions,” “Master Black Belts” and “Black Belts” helps break down functional barriers.

Lean Six Sigma is one of the most effective strategies for improv-ing processes, creating better

products, and boosting customer satisfaction. The goal of Lean Six Sigma is to design products and processes that do what they are supposed to do with very high reliability. Lean Six Sigma ap-plies to widespread applications in many sectors of industry, in-cluding business transactions, services, product development, operations and manufacturing processes.

Six Sigma Deployment Approach at KOC

It is well known that Lean Six Sigma employs statistics to guide improvement efforts - but im-plementing a successful Lean Six Sigma program requires more than a mastery of statisti-cal problem solving techniques - it requires leadership to help teams get things done. This

• To facilitate the prioritization and execution of Six Sigma improvement projects that

were identified as per Phase 1 through trained KOC employees.

• To develop a “Continuous Improvement Plan” (CPI) to achieve self-sufficiency in

order to sustain the improvement drive.

Exhibit 1: Six Sigma Deployment Approach at KOC

43 TheKuwaitiDigest

combination of technical exper-tise for process improvement and leadership commitment through alignment of strategic directions of the organization is the unique philosophy of Lean Six Sigma.

Recognizing the aforementioned facts and learning from the KOC pilot project, the KOC approach to Six Sigma deployment has been designed based on the fol-lowing key principles:

• Clear alignment of process improvement work with stra-tegic goals and business ob-jectives and the improvement of specific business metrics.

• Organization of Lean Six Sigma activity around “end to end” key value streams.

• Narrow the focus to indi-vidual projects that have the greatest impact on the over-all value stream.

• Rapid results that are clearly defined and measured and provide clear ROI data.

• The use of in-house resourc-es while involving and edu-cating a broader base of as-sociates to help drive cultural change.

• KOC envisaged the Six Sigma deployment in three phases as shown in Exhibit 1. The scope of Services and deliverables generally include:

• Comprehensive initial as-sessment study including leadership vision, strategic directions, business objec-tives, performance metrics, etc. and develop company-wide Business Relationship Mapping (BRM).

• Map high level “Value Streams” for key pro-cesses and develop the “Engagement Master Plan” with the identification of the project pipeline.

• To provide necessary train-ing, coaching, mentoring, project completion and certi-fication for key roles (Project Champions, Black Belts, Green Belts).

• To facilitate the prioritization and execution of Six Sigma improvement projects that were identified as per Phase 1 through trained KOC employees.

• To develop a “Continuous Improvement Plan” (CPI) to achieve self-sufficiency in order to sustain the improve-ment drive.

This program shall be imple-mented across KOC covering all directorates in a phased manner over next three years as shown in Exhibit 2.

This program is sponsored by KOC leadership and led by sen-ior management at each direc-torate and shall have project teams from around KOC. It is being facilitated by the Quality Assurance Team under the Management Support Group. The Management Support Group (MSG) has signed a contract with global consultant OMNEX Inc. USA to assist KOC in this journey.

This program shall be implemented across KOC covering all directorates in a phased manner

over next three years as shown in Exhibit 2.

This program is sponsored by KOC leadership and led by senior management at each directorate

and shall have project teams from around KOC. It is being facilitated by the Quality Assurance

Team under the Management Support Group. The Management Support Group (MSG) has

signed a contract with global consultant OMNEX Inc. USA to assist KOC in this journey.

Exhibit 2: Road Map for Six Sigma Deployment at KOC Exhibit 2: Road Map for Six Sigma Deployment at KOC

One Woman’s BattleExposing Anorexia and Bulimia

Internal Event

Yasmeen Sharaf is a young wom-an who has taken up the cause of spreading awareness about a rarely discussed secret that affects millions of individuals around the world. This secret, which many would rather ignore than bring to the light, has the potential to wreak havoc on the physical and mental health of its victims, and it is not uncommon for some who are afflicted to pay the ultimate price with their lives. The menace that Yasmeen Sharaf is cur-rently battling against is in a class of its own, known broadly as an eating disorder and specifically as anorex-ia and bulimia.

Over the course of the past year, Yasmeen, who is a recovering vic-tim of an eating disorder herself, has tackled this issue head on by delivering informative presentations and lectures about the dangers as-sociated with anorexia and bulimia. She also discusses her own personal struggle with an eating disorder and details the road to recovery that she is currently on. Her work has taken

her to various universities and in-stitutions around Kuwait, including KOC, where she has delivered pres-entations. She has even been fea-tured on a number of TV channels where she discusses her journey and the dangers associated with those suffering from eating disor-ders who do not seek help.

What is an Eating Disorder?

In a recent presentation titled “Perfection is Imperfection” deliv-ered at the American University of Kuwait, Sharaf described eating disorders as conditions which are defined by irregular eating habits which see individuals consuming an insufficient amount of food (anorex-ia nervosa) or excessive amounts of food followed by a process of purg-ing (bulimia nervosa).

During her presentation, Sharaf described bulimia as the process of “eating everything in sight followed by a period of purging.” This purg-ing, she maintained, can be facili-tated by self-induced vomiting or by

abusing laxatives, with the goal of quickly expelling food content from the body. Anorexia, on the other hand, does not involve eating large amounts of food followed by purg-ing. Rather, those suffering from anorexia nervosa eat very little, if anything at all. Undernourishment, coupled with excessive exercise, can lead to those suffering from anorex-ia to reach dangerously low weight levels.

What Causes an Eating Disorder?

There are a number of causes which can lead to eating disorders that vary from biological, psychological, environmental or cultural reasons. However, what is clear among those suffering from anorexia or bulimia is that the victim often suffers from a distorted image of self. For exam-ple, a psychological disposition may cause the sufferer to believe that he or she is “fat”, even when their actual weight plummets to danger-ously low levels. Other reasons, as Sharaf pointed out, can stem from ideas perpetuated by the culture the individual lives in. For exam-ple, a common theme attributed to Western pop culture is the alleged belief that being thin is equated with being beautiful or successful. This, coupled with the preoccupation of many young women with their physical appearance, can result in a distortion in their minds of what “beauty” actually is.

During her presentation, Yasmeen Sharaf maintained that some of the aforementioned body issues may arise during puberty, when there is a lack of understanding or igno-rance about one’s health and body. Others, she said, may use an eat-ing disorder as a subconscious way to get attention. Pressure from par-ents for their children to succeed or

45 TheKuwaitiDigest

internalizing family problems which are out of their control (such as a di-vorce or separation) are other ways in which eating disorders may find themselves manifested. Factors such as the friends or company that one keeps can affect how people see themselves. It is not uncommon for groups of friends to give diet advice that is simply wrong, dangerous, or both. Oftentimes, this can exacer-bate problems individuals have with self-image and push them towards more drastic course of action, such severely limiting their food intake or expelling food they have eaten.

Yasmeen’s Story

During her talk at AUK, Yasmeen shared her personal story which detailed her battle with anorexia. Yasmeen’s story began after she completed high school and moved away from New York, where she was a “Straight A” student. Upon her ar-rival in Egypt, Yasmeen maintained that she lived with a friend whose mother would constantly belittle her in public and in front of other people by calling her fat. This continuous mental abuse eventually led to the development of the misconstrued belief that she needed to become thinner. Eventually, Yasmeen’s diet

consisted of diet drinks, sugar free gum and lollypops. Yasmeen’s food intake became so scarce and devel-oped into such an extreme degree that she would not even drink water.

Limiting one’s intake to basically nothing is dangerous on many levels. The damage to Yasmeen’s physical health became very clear as she reached extremely low levels of weight. This eventually led to her suffering from an epileptic fit, which prompted those around her to seek medical help for her. Instead of re-ceiving proper treatment, Yasmeen was placed in a mental institution, where officials began the ill-in-formed process of force feeding her. She eventually left the institution but continued to be anorexic, which saw her readmitted for three months, confined in one room, and being forced to eat. The following years would see Yasmeen trying to obtain treatment at various centers in New York and California, but to no avail.

Today, Yasmeen maintains that she is still recovering from the effect of anorexia. Despite her weight be-ing restored to a much healthier level than it was during the depths of her affliction, Yasmeen admits

that she still carefully monitors how much food she allows herself to eat. The road to recovery, she says, is a long one that is filled with trials, tribulations, setbacks and victories. However, it is her uncompromising goal to confront her eating disor-der and share information about anorexia and bulimia to those who are currently suffering from similar issues.

Yasmeen’s parting message for those in attendance was to simply seek help if they or anyone they knew showed signs of suffering from an eating disorder. Openness and correct information are some of the most powerful tools that can be used to combat an eating disorder.

Yasmeen Sharaf is a member of KOC’s extended family. Her father, a Port Operations Team Pilot, has been with the Company for more than 25 years. His dedication to his job is surpassed only by his love and support for his daughter, as he often accompanies her during her presentations and encourages her to continue working toward the goal of spreading awareness about this de-bilitating disorder.

KOC officials with Yasmeen Sharaf following her presentation.

This paper provides a quantitative and qualitative study of a solar pow-ered single effect absorption chiller which uses an evacuated tube col-lector and water lithium bromide so-lutions versus a grid connected con-ventional chiller for a medium-sized office complex. It also evaluates the techno-economic performance of the solar collector/chiller system.

Introduction

Environmental pollution and the en-ergy crisis has brought serious prob-lems to the world’s environment and sustainable development. Kuwait is no exception. Therefore, clean en-ergy production, reducing green-house gas emissions and environ-mental preservation are now some of Kuwait’s top priorities.

Kuwait recently announced its clean energy target, which states that 1% of its electricity will be produced

from renewable energy sources by 2015. That target is planned to be increased to 15% by 2030.

Therefore, it is the need of the hour to look into how we can utilize and produce renewable energy without affecting the environment and oper-ational requirements. Solar energy is the focus of Kuwait’s renewable energy drive, and in recent years it has attracted a small but growing interest.

Solar energy is one of the most available forms of energy on earth. Kuwait experiences extended sum-mers where the entire country can achieve temperatures of greater than 46 °C. Furthermore, Kuwait receives solar radiation equivalent to more than 35,000 billion KWh/year. This solar energy has the po-tential to be utilized. Above all uti-lizing this energy will contribute to the protection of the environment by minimizing greenhouse gas (GHG) and CO2 emissions.

Solar energy is utilized in many different ways. The most familiar form is used to heat up water for domestic use. Another form utilizes photovoltaic cells which transform solar energy into electricity. Solar energy is being investigated for po-tential Heating, Ventilation and Air Conditioning (HVAC) applications, which are the top consumers of elec-tricity for any facility. Although the conventional cooling approach us-ing grid connected electric chillers is reliable as well as time tested, it con-sumes significantly high amounts of electrical energy. As a result, solar air conditioning is a particularly at-tractive application for solar energy usage in Kuwait.

Solar Thermal Collectors

The principle behind solar ther-mal energy is simple. A solar col-lector absorbs a high level of solar radiation while minimizing losses from reflection and heat loss to the surrounding environment. Fluid is warmed as it passes through tubes in the collectors and is then distribut-ed to the appropriate system. There are three basic levels of solar ther-mal energy:

Low Temperature: 50 - 80°CMedium Temperature: 80 - 120 °CHigh Temperature: 120 - 250+ °C

There are various types of solar ther-mal collectors, as listed below, and due to their very distinctive design, these collectors generate different levels of solar heating (low/medium/high temperatures).

Conventional Vs. Solar Absorption Chillers:

An Analysis

Internal Report

Submitted by Hamzah Ahmad (Team Leader, Standards Team), Mohammad Shakeel (Mechanical Engineer, Standards Team), Shiv Shankar Yadav (Electrical Engineer, Project Management, NK)

47 TheKuwaitiDigest

• Flat Plate Collector (FPC): For low temperature (50 - 80 °C)

• Evacuated Tube Collectors (ETC): For medium tempera-ture( 80 - 120 °C)

• Parabolic Trough Collectors (PTC): For high temperature (120 - 250 °C)

Absorption Air Conditioning System: Concept and Design

The absorption chiller is quite similar to the electrically-driven vapor com-pression chiller. An electric chiller is operated with the condenser, expansion valve, evaporator and compressor, whereas the absorption chiller is a heat-operated unit which uses a refrigerant that is alterna-tively absorbed and liberated from the absorbent. In a basic absorption chiller, the compressor of the electri-cally-driven chiller is replaced by an absorber-generator assembly.

The refrigerant path in an electrical driven chiller is:

Evaporator - Compressor - Condenser - Expansion Valve - Evaporator

The refrigerant path in an Absorption Chiller is:

Evaporator - Absorber - Generator - Condenser - Evaporator

The refrigerant used in the absorp-tion chiller is highly soluble in the absorbent. The evaporator and ab-sorber are interconnected.

The electric chiller is a work oper-ated cycle because the elevation of pressure of the refrigerant is ac-complished by a compressor that re-quires work. The absorption chiller, on the other hand, is referred to as a heat operated cycle because most of the operating cost is associated with providing heat that drives off

the vapor from the high pressure liq-uid. For a Solar Chiller, this heat is taken from solar energy.

Solar Air Conditioning System: Concept and Design

Solar cooling is one of the most fas-cinating applications of solar energy because it generates air conditioning from the sun’s energy. This system takes advantage of the coincidence of high summer solar radiation and the need for air conditioning during the same period. This significantly reduces the energy consumption of the building, thus increasing its envi-ronmental sustainability.

Proposed Cooling Solution for an Office Complex

An air conditioning system with a cooling capacity of 100 TR for a single story office building (2,000 m2) is being envisaged. The cooling requirement of the office complex shall be met either by solar or elec-tric chillers, each having a capacity of 100 TR. A solar chiller with a ca-pacity for 100 TR shall not be work-ing in tandem with a 100 TR electric chiller.

In general, the cooling demand of the aforementioned office complex shall be met by a new generation

of solar chillers. The conventional electric chiller shall act as a standby chiller for 100% cooling capacity.

The solar energy plant consists of an Evacuated Tube Collector (ETC) (Total area: 3,000 m2 / 30 m2 per refrigeration ton) and a water stor-age tank. The ETC generates hot water and this hot water is used by the Vapor Absorption Chiller at 90 °C. The output is then stored in stor-age tank in order to have continuous hot water supply to solar chiller. The capacity of vapor absorption chiller is 100 TR with an outlet chilled water temperature of 7 °C.

A conventional electric chiller (based on a vapor compression cycle) of 100 TR is used to generate chilled water at a temperature of 7 °C. The chilled water produced by a solar chiller or electric chiller is then cir-culated through an air handling unit (AHU) to the office complex in order to meet the complete air condition-ing load.

Conversion of Hot Water (90 °C) to Chilled Water (7 °C)

Our analysis is limited to the use of a solar thermal cooling solution by way of an electric chiller in the harsh climatic conditions of Kuwait. The schematic arrangement of the pro-posed cooling solution for the office complex discussed earlier should

have a single effect solar chiller (1 x 100 TR), an electric chiller (1 x 100 TR standby unit), evacuated tube collector, water storage tank and other accessories.

Here the solar energy is gained through the evacuated tube collec-tor and is accumulated in the stor-age tank. Then, the hot water in the storage tank is supplied to the gen-erator to boil off water vapor from a solution of Lithium Bromide and water. The water vapor is cooled down in the condenser and then passed to the evaporator where it is evaporated again at low pressure, thereby providing cooling to the re-quired space. Meanwhile, the strong solution leaving the generator to the absorber passes through a heat exchanger in order to preheat the weak solution entering the genera-tor. In the absorber, the strong solu-tion absorbs water vapor leaving the evaporator.

Cooling water from the cooling tow-er removes the heat by mixing and condensation. Since the tempera-ture of the absorber has a higher influence on the efficiency of the systems than the condensing tem-perature, the heat rejection (cool-ing water) fluid is allowed to flow through the absorber first, and then to the condenser.

The changeover scheme from solar to electric chiller or vice versa shall be monitored and controlled by a chilled water outlet temperature us-ing a control valve. This control valve

shall be operated based on the in-put from a temperature transmitter through a suitably designed control system. In the event of failure of the solar chiller, the electric chiller shall take over.

Technical Evaluation

The economics of solar collector/chiller system offer the following unique advantages:

• Environmentally friendly (No CFCs, Zero ODP )

• Very low electrical energy consumption

• Hybrid of solar collector/chiller and electric chillers to reduce demand charge

• Currently the best choice is the Single Effect Absorption Chiller with Evacuated Tube Collector (ETC)

At the same time, the solar collector/chiller system has certain limitations that should also be considered while selecting the technology.

• High capital cost of solar collec-tor in the total inventory of solar cooling plant

• Relatively large solar field

• Absorption chiller’s chemistry is corrosive and hence its life cycle will be reduced if the inhibitors are not properly maintained.

Conclusion

A simple methodology for assess-ing solar cooling versus electric cooling is presented here. This has been done taking into account the cooling demand, the solar resource availability, climatic conditions and their cost considerations.

Solar absorption will significantly re-duce peak electrical demand. Also, the additional investment required to put up a solar cooling system will be recovered annually within a rea-sonable economic lifespan.

Furthermore, continuously rising hydrocarbon prices and decreasing solar collector prices will make solar powered air conditioning systems a preferred choice, particularly for district cooling requirements in the days to come. This technology has the potential to be a sustainable so-lution for energy conservation and the protection of the environment.

The viability of solar collector/chiller systems is being studied for the first time in our Company with a vision to realize high industrial standards. We are fully committed to the HSE program. The aim of its operations is to create a work and business cul-ture of HSE leadership and practice which adheres to its commitments.

References:

1. Johnson Controls White Paper. Solar Thermal Energy: The Time Has Come.

2. Study of Solar Absorption Air Conditioning System. Journal of Energy in South Africa (Volume 16 No.4. November, 2005).

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