Making the UK the safest place to work in the oil and gas industry

Steve Bullock, Senior Vice President HSSEIA, Petrofac Offshore Projects & Operations, recently spoke at an Energy Institute event in Aberdeen about how the UK oil and gas industry is proactively making the UK the safest place to work in the worldwide oil and gas industry.

The event was attended by 120 oil and gas professionals, including leaders, safety specialists, graduates, members of the press and academics.

The presentation included an overview of the progress made since the inception of Step Change in Safety in 1997, of which Steve is Co-chair.

Steve highlighted that in order to make the UK the safest oil and gas province in the world:

• we must have strong and sustainable leadership in health and safety
• workforces must be fully engaged in health and safety
• issues must be effectively communicated across the industry
• we must raise standards and continually improve our health and safety performance
• asset integrity must be effectively managed

Steve also presented a working example of how Petrofac manages asset integrity at a Group and operational level: the Asset Integrity Review Board meets monthly and focuses on the performance of each asset using a dashboard tool which aims to monitor the current safety, risk management and integrity status of assets.

The meeting uses the tool to provide challenge to assets and identify technical support, as well as share global knowledge, experience and lessons learned. Sharing best practice with industry professionals, Steve took the attendees through the process of how the dashboard works and the critical factors for its success.