Google Sightseeing takes you on tour of the world as seen from satellite, using the free Google Earth program, or Google Maps in your web browser. Each weekday your guides James and Alex present new weird and wonderful sights as suggested by readers.

The editors: James & Alex

Qatar Oil Industry

Thursday, 4th August 2005 by Alex

Check out this port in Qatar. Shake says:

Is that an oil spill in the water? Because it looks like that tanker is capsizing and some other small boats are trying to push it back.

Qatar Oil Spill

We weren’t sure however. Could it not be that the tugs are just moving the tanker into place, and that the swirls in the water are formed by sediment being thrown up? Regardless, it’s a cool image.

A little further west is this burning thing, and along the coast a little is this really cool spout of water emptying into the sea. Can someone explain these sights?

Qatar Water

Many thanks to Shake, Stephane and Todd Day.

16 Responses to 'Qatar Oil Industry'

  1. 1. Martin says:

    I really dig the natural gas tanker with the 5 big domes sitting there too.

  2. 2. KC says:

    The water is probably just for cooling. Here is what looks to be a water intake. The pipe line can be traced to the facility where the water output originates from.

    And the discoloration of the water may also be airbubbles from the cavatation of the water by the tug boat props, but that’s total speculation.

  3. 3. Steve Zilko says:

    My take is that the discoloration may be from the tub probs churning up silt on the bottom of the harbor.

    I don’t think the ship is capsizing, just getting pushed up to the dock.

  4. 4. Jack says:

    Ditto, Steve. Those tugs need a lot of thrust to push large vessels. Not to mention that the dock configuration probably makes it easier to push the tanker to the loading site rather than backing the tanker in under it’s own power.

  5. 5. Berend says:

    I’d assume the burning thing is a gas flame, like they have at gas wells? Although I couldn’t tell what it is doing here in a port.

  6. 6. Jeff Wise says:

    My take would be a possible desalinazation plant. I know that Qatar is trying to expand their water supply? Any body got another idea?

  7. 7. Jack says:

    The burning thing may be a natural gas flare.

  8. 8. Jack says:

    There’s Placemark: more water flows / Google Earth to the south of the ship terminal.

  9. 9. Keith T. says:

    It’s not capsizing, we’d see part of one of its sides if it were tilting.

    The efflugent also does not act at all like what oil would do on the water. (The “leaky tanker” from last week is more like it.) It’s probably silt kicked up by the movement of the tanker.

  10. 10. Chris S says:

    This is an LNG complex - http://www.qatargas.com.qa/corporate-profile/onshore.htm

  11. 11. ToRX says:

    Maybe check this interesting page with video footage of the whole industrial site there. I suspect that water spot there to be the cooling water used for air conditioning or the huge gas storage tanks, as on the virtual map of that site the pipes seem to go only from the gas tanks towards the see. Well, check it out: http://www.raslaffan.com.qa/rlc/index.html

  12. 12. Guardian says:

    I think the boat is beeing pushed in to the dock, the waterpipe is just for cooling and the flame is burning oil/feul steam from the pomp mechanism
    on the dock… you often see those flames at oil refinerys…

    U agree?

  13. 13. Mohamed says:

    I work at the site.

    It’s the berth for Qatargas and Rasgas which are LNG production plants. The ship you are looking at is one of RaGas’ ships which is a membrane type ship which is being assisted by tugs (churning up some mud) to berth before loading being loaded with LNG destined for Korea. If you zoom out a bit you will see another ship already at the berth and this is one of Qatargas’ MOSS type ship because you can see 5 spheres on it, its’ also being loaded and is probably on it’s way to Japan.

    The second picture is the cooling water discharge for the Qatargas plant, which is water cooled. Qatar is a fairly flat country and we often joke that this is the largest waterfall in the country.

    There are two flares at the jetty one for each berth for the flare gas while loading and there are three major flares at the plant site itself.

    cheers

  14. 14. Steven says:

    This docking facility is at the RASGAS facility in Qatar. The ship (not boat) is not sinking and is being pushed into the dock by the tugs who are just churning up the silt.

    Also, the water churn is from the cooling facility….zoom up coast a little bit and you will see the intake site.

  15. 15. Stephan Segraves says:

    Yep, this is definitely a Liquified Natural Gas station. The ship on the bottom left is a carrier of LNG.

    Mohamed, what companies run that plant? I work for Shell and was wondering if that was one of our stations that we have a partnership in.

  16. 16. Ulziibuyan says:

    My name is Ulziibuyan. I live in Ulaanbaatar city Mongolia. Mongolia is just developing country. I am looking chance to work in qatar at oil industry. please tell me way to apply.

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