In an exclusive interview, Aramco’s VP and Chief Loss Prevention Engineer Ghassan Abulfaraj, discusses the company’s strategic approach to risk management
Oil & Gas Middle East: What is Aramco’s approach to managing risk exposure?
Abulfaraj: Aramco proactively assesses and manages all risks be it strategic, operational, compliance or financial using a systematic and detailed methodology and undertaking appropriate responses.
The company operates in an industry where effective risk management is a necessary part of doing business.
At Aramco, the pursuit of safety excellence is at the heart of everything that we do. Safety is a core value that helps protect our people, assets, and the environment. As such, a visible commitment by management to controlling operational risk is a cornerstone of successfully implementing the company’s safety policy. This responsibility is cascaded from our executive leadership team to frontline leaders.
Aramco is committed to providing a safe workplace for our people, and loss Prevention (LP) plays a central role in managing the safety of the company and its affiliates. In addition to administering the company’s safety policies, assessing compliance, and overseeing proper implementation of our Safety Management System (SMS), we continuously assess emerging risks, develop mitigating plans, and integrating their solutions internally.
Oil & Gas Middle East: How has Loss Prevention positioned Aramco to succeed?
Abulfaraj: Our objective is to enable excellence in safety, and we seek to achieve this through integrating safety in all aspects of the business.
We are continuously seeking new opportunities to simplify and digitalise our processes, develop human capital, enhance organisational capabilities and asset integrity, all while investing in future generations to take our company to new heights.
Moving forward, we plan to continue our efforts to:
- Strengthen our contractors’ safety performance by maintaining a strong field presence, and further strengthening contractors’ accountability practices.
- Invest in human capital while remaining focused on growing capabilities across all levels of the organisation.
- Assist the company in growing its organisational capabilities to effectively address emerging risks and the changing operational landscape.
- Deploy safety technologies and automation in operational facilities, projects, and assets, with the aim of reducing workforce exposure and enhancing safety in the workplace. Projects such as Digital Plants, expected to be implemented in 20 of the company’s largest operational sites, automate 10 key operational safety processes to reduce human error, while the Smart Site Safety Solution improves compliance at project sites through integrated smart wearables and AI-powered cameras.
Oil & Gas Middle East: What does the organisation see as areas for future growth and development?
Abulfaraj: To drive continuous improvement, we have identified areas for future growth and development based on our strategic pillars of services, performance, and capabilities. These strategies include:
- Develop, govern and maintain safety policies and standards.
- Provide fit-for-purpose safety consultation services.
- Integrate safety into the spectrum of Aramco’s businesses.
- Assess safety performance.
- Drive corporate safety performance.
- Develop and retain a competent LP workforce.
- Elevate safety awareness in our community.
- Create an innovative environment.
Stemming from these strategies, LP is currently focusing on:
- Solidifying safety oversight to include our in-Kingdom and global affiliates.
- Harnessing the value of information collected through a predictive safety approach, as well as using effective artificial intelligence and machine-learning technologies.
- Developing and enhancing technical and leadership safety capabilities.
- Enriching corporate safety training programs, both leadership and technical, by leveraging technology and digitalisation opportunities.
- Expanding contractor partnerships through our Contractor Safety Improvement Program.
- Enhancing and promoting our safety recognition programs to strengthen the link between safety performance and overall business success.
- Supporting the development of national safety capabilities via safety training programs provided by national academies and training centers.
Oil & Gas Middle East: What are Aramco’s initiatives towards protecting employees from hazards?
As Aramco continues to expand its business, the expansion of our activities to meet growing global demand will be crucial, and requires maintaining a steadfast commitment to safety procedures.
With this in mind, the company has implemented a number of initiatives to protect our personnel and assets, including leveraging technology to build safety solutions that proactively identify hazards, enabling our contractors to build safety capabilities to carry out their jobs safely, and partnering with prestigious institutions to build academic programs, and conduct research and development.
We are continuously looking to strengthen our collaboration with all stakeholders (employees, contractors, service providers, government agencies), and we continue to prioritise the training of our workforce to perform their jobs safely.
Through a wide range of initiatives and processes, the company aims to maintain a leading position in the industry.
An example is the initiative we worked on in partnership with another firm to customise a Fire-Resistance Clothing (FRC) line, targeting our female workforce. We developed a number of design concepts to improve style and comfort from a safety perspective, while ensuring that cultural requirements were met. Designs included a double-layered, flame-resistant shirt with an integrated inner layer that protects female employees from potential burn injuries. This was important given the growing female demographic within the company’s workforce.
How has technology helped facilitate or simplify some of these processes?
Technology plays a key role in improving Loss Prevention’s safety processes and we continue to advance our digital capabilities through programs centered on digital process safety and operations management.
We created SafeLife – a digital platform used by various plants and facilities to manage numerous elements of Aramco’s Safety Management System.
Our organisation also currently employs a number of technologies that help identify common hazards in our field operations. We are looking into the use of video analytics, machine learning, and big data analytics in the field of safety aiming to reduce risks, exposure and human error. Today, we apply the Smart Site Safety Solution (4S), which combines innovation and technology to detect and prevent construction site incidents, and we provide ongoing support of new Immersive Virtual Reality safety training curriculums that enable multiple users to train together simultaneously, regardless of geographical location.
