Pearl Village is a 170-acre residential area built to house the huge number of contractor staff who constructed Pearl GTL, the world’s largest gas-to-liquids plant, for Qatar Petroleum and Shell.
At the peak of construction, around 52,000 people worked on the project, with contractors coming from more than 50 countries to build the Pearl plant. Pearl Village is a vast grid-like network of streets with neat rows of temporary air-conditioned dormitories, 10 minutes’ drive from the Pearl GTL plant, but still within Ras Laffan Industrial City. From the start, it had to be a fully-fledged community that made the contractors feel at home.
“It was very important for the project that we looked after the workers,” said Chuck Doherty, who was village ‘mayor’. “That meant both at work in terms of safety on the job, but also after work too.” He ran a 250-strong volunteer group that supported a welfare team in organising events such as basketball competitions, quiz evenings and fun runs. The team organised more than 3,000 events in 2010.
At the peak of construction, it took a huge workforce of more than 1,800 to keep everything in the village running smoothly, including almost 500 cleaners and over 1,000 kitchen staff. It was a melting pot of cultures with different tastes in food. A wide range of national dishes were available in the mess halls, reflecting the diversity of workers’ origins..