Spring 2020 will go down in history within our work community in Tornio as a challenging one. As the Covid-19 pandemic approached, we divided us into two small groups in order to minimize and prevent a possible spread of the virus. In addition, we arranged for protective equipment and disinfection and other cleaning supplies to be placed in several different locations and the cleaning of our premises was intensified. We have also worked from home whenever possible.
Especially challenging was our Client’s annual maintenance shut down in May – June. We organized our own staff and all our external subcontractors into small groups, both in terms of work, breaks, arrival and departure times. One tricky task was to upgrade one of our compensators located in a confined small space. Due to such as short service shut down schedule, several different work groups had to work simultaneously while dismantling, installing, inspecting and commissioning the compensator.
Some of our installation supervisors from abroad lived in Finland under quarantine-like conditions for two weeks before the start of the Maintenance Shut Down. We arranged border crossing permits for our foreign subcontractor’s employees in accordance with the Government’s instructions. They stayed their nights at a hotel in Haparanda, Sweden, and during the day they were with us at the construction site in Tornio. We were also strict about everyone following the guidelines concerning the use of protective equipment.
Taking the special arrangements into account, we were able to carry out maintenance shut down work according to planned schedules and are happy to say almost all works are soon completed. In addition, we have been able to do some maintenance work during our customers’ brief planned production interruptions at the same time.
In the beginning of the week, we will make our last re-couplings as per plan.
We have also successfully managed to avoid the Corona virus. No one in the work community or in their immediate family got infected.
In the meantime, we have experienced melting snow, Spring floods, nature’s awakening pre summer and the “Creature” storm. Up north, ski lifts entertained ski enthusiasts at the dawn of summer, sun shining upon them day and night.
Despite everything, we are slowly starting to prepare for the celebration of Midsummer. I wish all you blog readers a good and safe summer and Midsummer.
Tornio Pentti Alatalo,
Site Manager Tornio.
PS. I have added some greetings and thoughts of an employee from our long-term co-operation partner on compensator matters, ABB Västerås.
Before we travelled to the site we were concerned about Covid-19 in Tornio and it’s risk level in Finland. Once we reached to the site we got really good support from Aurora Team and are now safe and secure.
We are really satisfied with the preventive measures taken by Aurora to combat Corona. They ensured that we had a safe time at the site by providing us protective materials such as face shields, masks , sanitizers and gloves in order to minimize and prevent the spread of Covid 19. Everyone here followed the health ministry’s recommendation of social distancing but also made sure that we had the required technical support during testing and commissioning.
Once again we would like to thank the complete Aurora team that commissioning could be completed in a very short time frame.
Regards
M.SYED MUSTAFA
