Review Incident Shin.. - authority for electricity regulation, oman

4.3. Spare parts
Since spares were not available in the Sohar area, spare parts had to be found in other regions.
It was recognized that in the network around Al Buraimi similar lines are installed as
the faulted line. For this reason, at 02.30 h OETC staff in Al Buraimi was contacted by the
operation engineer. The Al Buraimi staff were asked whether they had spare parts for the
line in stock. At 03.30 h the Al Buraimi people reported that they had conductors and
sleeves available. However, they could not find any insulators in their stores.
Although only two to three hours drive (with this material, with a normal car less than two
hours) from the fault location, it took until noon before the material was on the fault location.
Main reason for this was that a border station (Although in Oman, Al Buraimi is on the UAE
side of border check point) had to be crossed. For crossing the border, a special permission
had to be issued by the Royal Oman Police (“ROP”). However, this could only be done during
office hours. The Al Buraimi OETC employee therefore went to the ROP at around
07.30-08.00 h. With some difficulty (he had to leave his passport behind as guarantee) he
managed to get permission but not until around 10.00 h. Only after this time could the conductors
and sleeves have been transported out of Al Buraimi. Conductors and sleeves arrived
at the fault location at about 15.00 h. We do believe that it would be very useful to develop
special arrangements with the ROP for emergency situations, which will enable a
smoother restoration of the faults in case of emergency.
With respect to the insulators which were not available at Al Buraimi, OETC tried to contact
KEC and Civil Co for insulators. In the end, Civil Co found six insulators in their stores
which were left over from the time they constructed the line. However, it took a long time to
find these spare parts and transport them to the fault location. All material was at the fault
location at 16.30 h.
It is recognized by the Head of Maintenance of OETC that it took too long to get the spare
parts to the fault location. For this reason OETC will in future store spare material in the
Sohar area. This will include 10 insulators, sleeves and conductors.
4.4. Police reporting and rest
Between 02.30 h and 04.30 h the operation engineer went to the police to report the incident.
After that (between 04.30 and 05.30h) the operation engineer went home for a short
rest of about one hour.
We recognize that both reporting to the police and resting were probably necessary actions
that had to be performed by the operation engineer. However, we recognize as well that it
was unclear who was in charge for the coordination of the restoration activities at that time
Review Incident Shinas August 2007 15 09.10.2007
vs. 2 (final)