Doha: Qatar Petroleum Environment Fair 2012 opened at Doha Exhibition Center showing how environment is everyone's responsibility. Some 25 organisations not only from the civil society such as Friends of the Environment and Qatar University Environmental Studies Center, but also the biggest oil & gas companies such as Qatargas, RasGas, Total, Dolphin Energy and others are participating in the event.
Minister of Energy and Industry H E Dr Mohammed bin Saleh Al Sada, who inaugurated the fair, said that the environmental programmes that are currently being implemented in Qatar demonstrate the dedication of the oil and gas industry to improve its environmental performance.
Environment-friendly projects are often the most business-friendly ones as well. What the environment asks sometimes is only a more rational and efficient use of our resources which results in a more productive mechanism for the industry as well.
Qatargas is investing about $1bn in the Jetty-Boil Off Gas (JBOG) recovery project which deals with waste recovery and energy efficiency. Gas worth more than 750 Mega Watt gets wasted every day: that's enough gas to power 40,000 homes according to James Baldwin, Environment Manager at Qatargas.
"Liquid natural gas often tends to turn into its originally gaseous status: the JBOG project aim is to recompress that gas, reducing LNG loading flaring by over 90 percent" Baldwin told The Peninsula.
In this way the CO2 generation from flaring will face a drastic cut down: from 1,800,000 tonnes of CO2 produced in 2011 to just 200,000 tonnes by 2014 after implementing the JBOG project on which thousands of people are working. To give a physical idea of the environmental impact, with this project we are saving four million acres of rain forest. In this way not only the environment gains fresh air, but we are also extending the life of the gas reserves.
Qatar's environment-friendly image will gain strength by switching off flares and also by protecting corals, the rain forest of the sea. Non-sustainable coastal developments and increasing seawater temperatures are the main threats to corals habitat. In order to investigate the southern Arabian Gulf coral reef, Dolphin Energy has sponsored a three-year project that led to the first integrated trans-border coral conservation management plan for the Arabian Gulf. This project was carried out with a comprehensive collaboration with different organisations as the World Wide Fund for Nature (EWS- WWF), the Ministry of Environment in Qatar, the National Coral Reef Institute of the US and others.
The next two days of thefair will be dedicated mainly to the kids with inter school environment quiz challenge and other activities.
© The Peninsula 2012
