To improve occupational safety there must an emphasis on human behaviour, argues Andy Gibbins, Vice President, Middle East with Euro Petroleum Consultants [EPC].
Health, Safety and Environmental performance has been steadily improving for refiners and petrochemicals producers in the Middle East in recent years. However whilst there have been significant efforts to drive HSE performance, some concerns still remain and more has to be done. The good news is that this fact is recognised.
Occupational Safety is focused on what are often called ‘hard-hat incidents’; these are the slips, trips and fall types of incident. The main focus in recent years has been correctly on effective management systems, high quality and up-to-date procedures, staff and contractor training, contractor selection and management and effective management oversight.
This focus has definitely helped to improve the statistics but some major challenges remain. Firstly and most importantly, the workforce in this region is highly multinational, with each nationality having its own cultural norms and expectations.
Language can be a barrier – the common language is English but levels of proficiency can vary. Then culture and background can have a big influence on behaviour – for example, how to convince someone to change workplace behaviour, when an unshakable belief in fate drives behaviour for that person?
Secondly, staff turnover remains high. An annual attrition rate of 10% is not uncommon as staff move around in search of ever better terms and conditions. This means that organisational memory is lost and there is a high and on-going need for effective training.
Lastly, huge numbers of contractor personnel come to manufacturing sites both for construction activities and during turnarounds.
This puts a huge burden on the operator in contractor selection and pre-assessment before even coming to site, in contractor induction as personnel arrive on site and in effective planning supervision as those contractor staff arrive at site to carry out their duties.
So just how are these issues addressed? Most importantly, a strong safety culture is essential and this must be driven from the very highest levels in the company.
Everyone from the Chief Executive downwards must be genuinely committed to driving HSE performance in the organisation.
Frankly speaking, if senior managers in refining and petrochemical companies don’t understand the importance of HSE, then they have chosen the wrong career path. Senior managers should drive a culture of HSE excellence, setting the very highest expectations for staff at all levels in the organisation and ensuring that poor practices are never tolerated. All of this should be backed up by the very best management systems, policies and procedures.
To achieve world class levels of occupational safety performance, there must also be an emphasis on human behaviour. Most accidents and incidents can be traced back to some aspect of human error. It may be that short cuts have been taken, or procedures have not been followed or that the risk has simply not been recognised.
It is important, however, to ensure that the organisation is at the right level of safety culture maturity before going too far with advanced programmes such as behavioural safety programmes.
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An organisation should know and understand where it is in terms of safety culture before embarking on new initiatives. The table below gives an indicator for safety culture and an organisation should make a frank assessment of just where it is currently before embarking on any improvement initiative.
Process Safety has a different emphasis to occupational safety. Process Safety Management (PSM) is a blend of engineering and management skills focused on preventing catastrophic accidents, particularly explosions, fires, and toxic releases, associated with the use of chemicals and petroleum products.
The need for effective Process Safety Management was widely recognised following the catastrophic Bhopal incident in India in December 1984, when an unplanned release of a highly toxic gas, methyl iso-cyanate, led to the deaths of many thousands of people.
However despite increased efforts, catastrophic incidents continue to happen, such as the BP Texas City fire and explosion in 2005, which caused 17 deaths and many more injuries. Even in recent weeks, the catastrophic explosion at the fertiliser plant in Waco, Texas, was almost certainly due to issues related to process safety management.
Whist there are overlaps between occupational and process safety, particularly in terms of culture and commitment, process safety requires a particular emphasis. In its simplest form, process safety is all about what should be done to avoid loss of containment, keeping things inside the pipes and vessels.
The Middle East region has largely followed the North American example in terms of managing process safety but in many organisations, process safety is a relatively new area focus and much more has to be done in order to achieve the very highest standards.
As with occupational safety, awareness at all levels of the organisation is critical and at this time, this level of awareness does not exist in many companies. Effective safety management saves lives.
It is also complimentary to operational excellence and, in the long run, it drives profitability via more efficient operations. Middle Eastern producers should start by making an objective assessment of where they are in terms of both occupational and process safety and then take decisive action to drive performance to the very highest levels.
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Tailer-made safety
SilverRed launches an online designer tool to help companies customise their protective workwear
Health and safety awareness continues to grow within the Middle East’s petrochemical industry. And it would behoove the most prudent companies to be prepared; especially when it comes to protecting your most valuable assets; the employees.
Over the last three years, SilverRed has emerged in the Middle East market as a high-quality manufacturer of protective wear, specialising primarily in manufacturing coveralls.
While there may already be a number protective wear manufacturers and distributors in the Middle East, SilverRed maintains that it is different from the rest of the pack.
“Whereas normal companies have standard products, we work with the fabric and the style, and we provide completely customised products,” says Jules Scholten, business development manager, SilverRed. Selecting the right materials is, of course, one of the primary decisions.
Those working in the steel industries facing the risk of being splashed with molten-hot liquids need thicker materials, which protect their skin; whereas, exploration and production companies employees working in remote desert locations have to face scorching heat and require much lighter work-wear.
“You can get a suit with protective value, but it doesn’t have that comfort level, because it doesn’t breathe,” says Scholten.
“That’s a problem, especially here in this region, where it’s hot, and if you work 12 hours a day in a suit that doesn’t breathe, you have to either wear a cotton shirt and underwear, or it can lead to an inconsistency in the safety protocols, because employees are so hot that they take off their work-wear, tie it down, undo the zippers or roll up the sleeves,” he warns.
SilverRed’s materials, he says, are of a different breed altogether. Whereas most protective garment manufacturers produce materials that are chemically produced, SilverRed has made a name for itself by being the sole distributor of Protal.
“The fabric is a composition of cotton and synthetic materials. Where other fabrics are 100% synthetic, we have 50% cotton, so it feels like a normal shirt, and works like a normal shirt,” says Scholten.
The company is about to push the protective wear industry even further. “We are launching an online designer tool to make the sales process a lot shorter,” reveals Scholten.
“For a lot of companies, it is a big hassle to get things like this sorted because it takes time to finalise the right design, to find the right supplier, the right fabrics etc.”
The online designer tool lets potential clients design and customise their protective work-wear in order to get samples from SilverRed.
2013 is set to be a busy year for the company as it is looking to launch the online product designer along with its website in the second week of June, and has already shifted its manufacturing operations into Dubai.
