Oil and gas production facilities will always be dangerous places to work and you can never be too careful. On these multi-million dollar facilities, the smallest mistakes can have the biggest consequences and in such a precarious environment, operators need to be extremely vigilant with health and safety procedures.
Safety managers are charged with the responsibility of looking after these giant plants, but even a seasoned safety-professional can only do so much.
That’s why it’s even more important to ensure that everyone at a production facility is properly trained.
“Safety should not wait until a safety manager comes around and tells you that you are doing something wrong,” says Mario Nahas, chief executive officer of the Gulf Technical & Safety Training Centre (GTSC). “It is something that should be ingrained in everyone’s mind.”
Established in 1993 at the Mussafah industrial park in Abu Dhabi, the GTSC is designed to foster an appreciation of health, safety and environmental awareness in all personnel working in the oil and gas sector, although more recently, the centre has been working with non-oil and gas companies as well.
With the damaging effect that an oil field incident can have on a company’s operation and reputation, it’s no surprise that there is an ever-growing push towards safety training throughout the industry.
“Everyone does the basic courses in safety, everyone needs to learn how to use a fire extinguisher, because if you catch a fire early, then are safe,” says Nahas. “But if your employees are running away because they don’t know how to use a fire extinguisher or how to react to an emergency, then things can get out of control,” he adds.
The basic fire fighting training course is also adapted to go beyond the work place, to help trainees understand the different types of fires, the different types of extinguishers and how to respond.
Naturally the residents and owners of an offshore oil rig would rather not have to pull out the fire extinguishers at all; so ensuring that employees know how to operate and maintain an oil rig is equally, if not more important.
“That’s where we are trying to do more work; we train and develop competency training courses, to help people do their jobs, safer and more effectively. To make them competent in their jobs, that is why we have the rig and the operational room,” says Nahas.
While being able to quantify your on-the-job, safety-response competence should be a second priority to having it ingrained in your workforce’s culture, it is still very important, especially when it comes to insurance.
Likewise, your employees will also want to know that they are being given the best training possible.
GTSC courses are approved and accredited by a number of organizations and associations around the world. Both clients and trainees can be confident that the training they receive will be valid almost anywhere they go.
“A lot of people move from one country to another, and maybe in one country they have never heard of the GTSC, but they have heard of the international accreditation. When they have OPITO for example, they know that they can work anywhere in Europe, the Middle East or Africa,” says Nahas.
“Ultimately, we are training to an international standard, drilling is basically the same everywhere you go,” he says.
“The standard of drilling shouldn’t change wherever you are. It’s the same equipment, safety is the same everywhere, if there is a fire here, or anywhere else in the world, it’s the same.”
Fire Survival Tips
Fire survival tip #1
When evacuating a smoke-filled room, use the back of your hand to feel your way around the walls. Touching an electrical outlet with the palm of your hand could force it to clench around the outlet which would be even more dangerous.
Fire survival tip #2
Different types of fires require different types of extinguishers, make sure you know where the extinguishers are and what types of fires they are suited for.
