“The coronavirus pandemic is delaying vital maintenance across the oil and natural gas industries” reports Bloomberg (London).

This is based around a few factors, including restricted numbers of contractors on production sites. Companies are being forced to delay work that’s been planned for years. In refineries, last-minute changes are being made to scale back their turnarounds, allowing the most urgent work to proceed while other projects are put back.

The backlog is fast becoming evident across the industry. For example, Norway’s Equinor ASA has delayed maintenance at five offshore oil and gas platforms; the shutdown of the Forties Pipeline running from the North Sea, has been put back; and Canadian oil sands producers have deferred their major plans.

“It would be very hard to conduct a turnaround exercising social distancing,” said an Oil and Gas consultant, having worked on refinery maintenance projects.

World Oil reports, “Oil and Gas installations are subject to routine inspections because of the wide range of risks to workers and the environment.” In the past 10 years, there have been several accidents and the increasing danger is a difficult balance for the industry.

Companies are now having to prioritise their works as emergency and essential maintenance must continue. Norway’s gas network operator said, “It’s only reducing non-critical work.” Major work scheduled at Marathon Petroleum’s giant Galveston Bay refinery in Texas City, has been postponed. Finland’s Neste Oyj has also scaled back a turnaround that’s long been planned for its main refinery.

At REGALTAG, we are the market leaders of customised safety and tagging solutions. When carrying out any maintenance projects, such as shutdowns and turnarounds, a full Tagging solution is vital. It provides clear tracking of all processes and can eliminate the potentially catastrophic risks of human errors - especially important with reduced operatives available.

All these postponed projects will have to go ahead sometime. It's inevitable that this huge backlog of works will create a sudden huge demand which will require a reliable and established supply chain.

Fortunately, at REGALTAG we keep large stocks of all Tag materials and can react quickly to demand. Brand new manufacturing facilities allow us to fully customised Tags and still dispatch within 1-2 weeks.

Operating in over 60 counties, we are used to handling requirements from almost every region worldwide and understand challenges of delivering the Tags fast.

Get in touch in now, we will be only too pleased to talk about your immediate or future requirements.