Fourth Contractors’ Safety Forum – Our journey towards Horizon Zero

This year marked our fourth Contractors' Safety Forum (CSF) in Dubai.

The safety event provides an invaluable opportunity for us to collaborate and discuss safety with our contractors, clients and our senior leaders. Around 180 delegates attended this year’s forum, which focused on the theme of ‘Working together to increase leadership, communication, and cooperation towards the achievement of Horizon Zero.’

George Salibi, Petrofac’s COO and Ali Abdulla, Vice President HSSEIA E&C opened the day, both emphasising the importance of leadership.

“A safety culture always begins at the top of any organisation and cascades throughout the entire business. As leaders, we should treat safety as a value and shall not pattern our safety behavior to meet priorities such as cost efficiency and schedule,” said George in his opening speech.

Elie Lahoud, Group Managing Director, Engineering & Construction – Oman, Iraq and Saudi Arabia, and Andy Nickerson, Head of Health and Safety, held a Q&A where the transparency of safety reporting and monitoring data was the main topic.

‘Fear the Green’ was one of the major highlights of the discussion, accentuating the need to deeper analyse the green indicators when the safety statistics have been compiled at our sites.

Breakout sessions were held in the second half of the day, offering attendees the opportunity to discuss and propose feasible solutions to key safety matters discussed.

The exercise culminated in everyone agreeing the action items for 2019/20, until we host our next Contractors’ Safety Forum.

Brent Pasula, Group Head of HSSEIA, closed the day by saying: “We have heard about the importance of consistent safety messaging at all levels in our organisations. Leaders must always demonstrate safety as a value as credibility takes a long time to build but only an instant to lose with one inconsistent decision.

"We have been able to meet here today to learn from past events, but it is essential that this now translates into action if we are to achieve our Horizon Zero vision.”