Safety champions of the North Sea have been recognised at the 2019 Offshore Safety Awards in Aberdeen today.
The annual awards ceremony, jointly organised by OGUK and Step Change in Safety and sponsored by TOTAL, celebrates the outstanding individuals and companies going above and beyond to improve safety across offshore operations on the UK Continental Shelf.
Finalists were considered for six awards covering Safety Leadership, Workforce Engagement, Innovation in Safety, Safety Representative of the Year, Operational Integrity and also a new category, Maritime Safety.
The event, held at new exhibition venue P&J Live, heard from Jean-Luc Guiziou, Managing Director of Total E&P UK as well as workforce speaker Mike Scotland, roustabout with Atlas Professionals and elected safety representative.
Subscribe to our daily newsletter
Why? Free to subscribe, no paywall, daily business news digest.
After hearing pitches from each of the finalists, the winners for each award were voted for by attendees at today’s awards ceremony using an interactive format.
The winners are:
The Maritime Safety Award, sponsored by Marine Safety Forum was won byOleg Krushynin, Solstad & Eric Wiseman, Seacroft Marine Consultants in recognition of their efforts to reduce the risk of injury when loading and discharging tubulars from a vessel.
Seacroft launched a ‘no climb’ policy and instead produced videos and photographic instructions on how the tubulars should be loaded without workers having to climb on top of the them. This change to procedure proved so successful it has been rolled out to other vessels within the operating fleet.
Safety Representative of the Year, sponsored by Dräger was awarded to Lee Chegwidden, production technician at Apache in recognition of his dedication to his role as an Elected Safety Representative (ESR). Lee was praised for his continued focus on promoting and sharing best safety practice with his offshore team as well as lessons learned.
Throughout his career at Apache Keith has been repeatedly re-elected as an ESR by his peers and continues to play a key part in shaping Apache’s safety culture and Step Change in Safety’s industry activities.
CNOOC International and DNV GL clinched the Award for Innovation in Safety, sponsored by Bureau Veritas in recognition of their ground-breaking use of virtual reality technology, designed to help eliminate hydrocarbon releases, prevent major incidents and ultimately save lives.
The pair developed an industry-leading virtual reality simulator which allows employees to ‘walk through’ scenarios inspired by real-life hydrocarbon release events, providing users with a full understanding of the circumstances that let to the events, the outcome and the lessons learned.
BP Clair Ridge Safety Representatives and Operations Technicians were crowned winners ofthe Workforce Engagement Award, sponsored by Peterson for their innovativeProcess Information Prevents Explosions (PIPE) tours which help engage and build process plant awareness among those working on the Claire Ridge project. The one-hour tours run weekly and are led by an operations technician and a safety representative who show participants the main areas of the process plant and explain the various systems and potential hazards.
The Award for Operational Integrity, sponsored by Aker Solutions was won by CNOOC International in recognition of their Hydrocarbon Release Prevention (HRP) Programme. This initiative has delivered a step change in safety performance across the company’s three North Sea installations as well as a positive shift in culture, from the leadership team to operatives offshore. Central to the success of the initiative was the direct involvement of senior leaders and the engagement of the workforce.
Shell UK’s Brent Decommissioning Project was voted the winner of the Sharing and Learning Award, sponsored by Spirit Energy for its efforts to reduce the number of eye-related incidents suffered by its workforce during Brent Delta decommissioning activities. Recognising that they had to encourage a downward trend in eye-related incidents, Shell introduced specific processes, procedures, provision of additional equipment, and ensured heightened awareness of the issue as well as rigorous implementation. This has resulted in a reduction of such incidents by 80 percent.
Commenting on the awards, Jean-Luc Guiziou, Managing Director of Total E&P UK said:
“Safety is vital for the offshore industry. We need to work together when it comes to safety and share our experiences of the risk and challenge. It’s also important that we recognise when companies and individuals get it right and share that best practice. Total is delighted to sponsor these awards and I offer our congratulations to everyone who has been nominated for an award.”
Matt Abraham, Health, Safety and Environment and Supply Chain Director with Oil & Gas UK, said:
“Recognising the achievements of those who have gone above and beyond in the name of maintaining safe operations across our industry is critically important. We continually strive to ensure the UKCS remains one of the safest basins to do business in the world and I’d like to say a heartfelt well done and thank you to all our winners, finalists and entrants in playing an important part in helping us achieve this.
Steve Rae, Executive Director of Step Change in Safety, said:
“It’s heart-warming to see the ingenuity, critical thinking and effort that has gone into the finalists’ award submissions here today.
These awards provide an engaging and collaborative platform which brings together like minded individuals and teams who all share a tangible passion for ensuring that safe operations remain central to everything they do.
The contributions of all our finalists are commendable, and demonstrate that opportunities still exist, within our industry, to continually enhance our approach to improving safety.”
