Qatar Shell has showcased its health and safety initiatives at the Society of Petroleum Engineers (SPE) “7th Middle East Health, Safety, Environment & Sustainable Development Conference and Exhibition” being held in Doha.
The conference has gathered leading industry specialists, who shared key international experiences and discussed a sustainable framework and local solutions for the Middle East oil and gas industry.
During the conference, senior representatives from Qatar Shell shared effective methods to achieve global best practice standards in the field of health and safety, and showcased the company’s recognised best-practice strategies.
Wael Sawan, managing director and chairman of Qatar Shell Companies, stressed on the organisation’s long-term commitment to HSE. He also emphasised that keeping people safe “starts with the implementation of safe, efficient, and responsible operations.”
“We are very pleased to be part of an event that brings the industry together to share experiences on common challenges. By participating in constructive dialogue and sharing our local and international experiences, we hope that we can contribute to improved practices and technologies in order to ensure the highest possible HSE standards across the oil and gas industry,” Sawan said. Sawan said safety will always remain a crucial focus area in the oil and gas industry and added that the title of this year’s conference “Protecting People, Environment, Asset, and Reputation – Are We Prepared?” reflects this concern.
The topics discussed among conference participants covered various HSE issues, including environmental protection, health hazard management, behaviour-based safety, land transportation safety, workers welfare, and security issues.
As part of the conference, Qatar Shell sponsored a university programme competition with students from Qatar University and Texas A&M University, who solved a case study challenge that focused on “The role of individuals in establishing a healthy workplace environment.”
The teams presented in front of a judging panel with the winning team from Qatar University being recognised in an awarding ceremony by SPE president Jeff Spath.
As joint venture partners, Shell and Qatar Petroleum have built the largest engineering project in Ras Laffan Industrial City in northern Qatar. It took 500mn man-hours to build Pearl GTL, and at the peak of construction, the project involved more than 52,000 workers from 50 nations.
Despite the large number of workers involved and the complexity of Pearl GTL’s construction, a strong safety culture helped Qatar Shell break industry records, Sawan said.
In 2010, Sawan said the project achieved 77mn hours worked without any lost time injury (LTI) and an overall LTI frequency of 0.04 LTI/mn man-hours corresponding to about 1/10th of the industry average.
“These results were achieved by focusing on the safety of each individual. It was underpinned by a genuine concern for the welfare of all our people and by investing in their training,” Sawan added.
