Case Study
Location – Iraq
Partners involved – Simian International, Shell & the Southern Oil Company
Background
We began work on this project in Iraq in April 2012. We were brought in following an accident involving a scaffold contractor who was using substandard equipment and untrained operatives. Our reputation for health and safety and driving up standards worldwide made us an obvious choice. They needed experienced scaffolders who would be able to train, instruct and mentor staff on the ground.
Simian International’s Involvement
We supplied supervisors to mentor and train the Iraq scaffold teams on location near Basra, in Southern Iraq, at the Manjoon oil field.
The competency of the scaffolders on site was as issue due to the fact Iraq does not have a scaffold training scheme. We introduced our International Scaffolder scheme and delivered onsite training to bring standards up to UK health and safety levels.
Since our involvement began in April 2012 there has not been another accident in scaffolding on the site. Our work began with 2 men in Iraq and in 2015 this increased to 6.
Working in Iraq has presented its challenges including the language barrier, issues with materials and some logistical difficulties but these have all been overcome by our experienced and dedicated staff. We are proud to be able to say that a total of 300,000 plus hours have been worked without a LTI in scaffolding since we began work on the project.
Our contract on this project is expected to run until April 2017.
