Tom Gray of East Point Geo presents ‘Best Practice in Shallow Gas Prone Areas’ at the Shallow Gas Forum, Kuala Lumper, Malaysia.

On the 17th April 2018 the MV Geos suffered a shallow gas blowout whilst drilling a geotechnical borehole, offshore Malaysia. One crew member sadly died and two others were injured. Java Offshore, who operated the vessel and were the contractor, organised the Shallow Gas Forum to raise awareness, share lessons learned and promote greater understanding of the issue.

Tom Gray from East Point Geo presented ‘Best Practice in Shallow Gas Prone Areas’ and contributed to the panel discussion. Tom said after the event ‘full credit has to go to Rizal and the Java Offshore team who have acted in a transparent and proactive way following the terrible events that occurred last April. Raising the profile of the shallow gas hazard in the context of geotechnical drilling is long overdue, and I only hope that through publicising events such as these that the wider industry will take a step forward in implementing best practice and procedures that can successfully minimise the chance of any future incidents occurring’.