While many of us work from home, one part of our business that has really focused on staying open for business is our fabrication facilities to ensure we can deliver on our projects. Nowhere has this been more evident than the yard where they have been facing COVID-19 longer than most and that’s our joint venture yard, QMW in Qingdao, China.

Wuhan, China went in to lockdown on January 23 but even before the lockdown, QMW were on the front foot and really demonstrated Taking the Lead with Health and Safety, preparing for a possible spread of the new virus as people returned from Chinese New Year holidays.

Qiuzhe Li, General Manager, QMW led the process that many of McDermott’s yards globally adopted over time as COVID-19 spread to other parts of the world – mandatory temperature checks, PPE for health monitoring staff, masks for employees, engaging with local authorities, social distancing in the yard and imposing 14-day quarantine periods and strict cleaning regimes all began in QMW.

Qiuzhe explains, “As the GCGV MEG project had decided to work through the holiday period, the yard remained open for business and after inspections from local authorities, we were allowed to continue operating because of the excellent health and safety regime that the teams were running. Many of the surrounding yards were closed during this period.” Qiuzhe continued, “This was a very challenging time for many and particularly the teams who were charged with monitoring the temperatures of all incoming employees daily in the freezing cold. They did a tremendous job in protecting everyone.”

Realizing what was ahead for many of the project teams, offices and yards across the world, the team in QMW also demonstrated their One Team approach by sharing huge amounts of PPE with the GCGV team in Texas, Black&Veatch in Kansas City, Technip in Paris and the McDermott offices in Kuala Lumpur, Hague and Houston to ensure the teams have the PPE they require to re-open. Qiuzhe concluded, “McDermott is one family, we need to always work as One Team and even more so at this time. QMW was grateful for the support we received in January and we were happy to be able to return the favor to our friends across the world. We will get through this together.”