Proving that there is no task above and beyond the call of duty, two employees from passive fire protection solutions provider Promat UK have successfully completed a demanding training course which now allows them to visit offshore installations.
Construction Support Manager Kevin Price, and Area Sales Manager Ewan MacLeod, spent a week learning vital survival skills that will allow them to serve the growing offshore market for the company’s products.
“Ewan worked with one of our licensees, SBL Fire Solutions Ltd, to win a large order for our Promat DURASTEEL fire protection panels,” says Kevin. “The panels will be used to upgrade the fire, blast and jet fire protection on oil and gas platforms in the North Sea. This meant that we would need to visit rigs and, therefore, made it necessary for us to pass the survival training course beforehand.”
Kevin and Ewan then spent a week with Aberdeen-based training company Survivex, during which they were subjected to a number of demanding challenges, including fire fighting, using a life raft, and escaping from smoke-filled rooms.
“Perhaps the most demanding task though was surviving a simulated helicopter ditching at sea,” adds Kevin. “Swimming underwater, using breathing apparatus and escaping from being strapped into a helicopter simulator seat in 4 metres of water were just some of the highlights. However it certainly focuses your attention on the fact that offshore installations and the work conditions on them are demanding and potentially hazardous.”
“Kevin and Ewan did extremely well on the course, and their success illustrates an important point,” adds Promat’s Business Development Director, Ian Cowley.
“Promat DURASTEEL is finding increasing popularity on offshore projects such as this, where rugged, high-performance fire protection is required. That’s a reflection of the many years of exhaustive testing that have been done to prove that Promat DURASTEEL is suited to this sort of extremely high performance application. It also underlines the fact that Promat will go the extra mile and provide guidance right from the initial system design, through to visiting an offshore facility to ensure that the installation work has been completed to the required standard.”
Promat DURASTEEL is a non-combustible composite panel with a fibre-reinforced cement, core which is mechanically bonded to punched steel sheets on both surfaces. It combines lightness, strength, impact-resistance and durability with exceptional fire resistance, and has been developed, and rigorously tested, for use in partitioning, ducting, door and ceiling applications.
Promat DURASTEEL systems have been used successfully for many years, on rail and metro projects, military developments and in commercial, pharmaceutical and petrochemical facilities.
