BOG ‘s Senior QHSE Officer (right) with Organisers
BOG attended the Contractors’ Line Management Safety Forum organized by the management of Chevron Nigeria Limited (CNL) on the 6th of February.
The theme was “Strengthening Safeguards Through a Learning Culture”. The event was held at Eko Hotel and Suites, Lagos State to reiterate the importance of strengthening safeguards through a learning culture with a view to ensuring safe operations.
MD/Chairman of CNL, Mr. Jeff Ewing, spoke elaborately on the theme and emphasized the need for contractors to comply with safety rules. According to Mr. Ewing, safety should begin with the top management and dovetail to every other staff.
He advised that every employee and contractor should live, think, say and practice safety in all operations. He also emphasized the risk-based and systematic approach in identifying, assessing, prioritizing and managing operational risks. He noted that effective leadership is a critical success factor in operations and implored CEOs /MDs to cultivate and drive the safeguard culture. Mr. Ewing pointed out that safety measures should be driven by CEOs. He said this will help showcase leadership in safety. He admonished top management to make safety communication effective and always recognize staff that abide by safety rules. He reiterated that the safety culture would minimize and even eliminate Lost Time Injuries (LTIs) in all our operations.
In the same vein, Mr Saheed, CNL’s Health Environment and Safety (HES) Manager-Technical in his presentation, said that safeguards are designed to directly prevent or mitigate accidents.
He mentioned the typical safeguards which include facility designs, mechanical devices, engineered systems, protective equipment and execution of procedures. He said, through the execution of assurance programs, there is the assurance that various safeguards are in place. He mentioned that safeguards can be strengthened through job risk assessment, pre-job meetings, post-job meetings, employee safe culture program, toolbox meetings, personnel assessment, behavior-based safety program (BBS), rewarding good safety initiatives etc.
Discussions were held after his presentation on the need to maintain and strengthen safeguards through a learning culture.
Representatives of BOG’s CEO at the session returned with points for improvement, covering needs for robust and effective HSE planning, need for alignment of such with CNL’s methods; the importance of top management commitment to HSE plans and programs and strengthening safeguard strategies through proactive programs.
BOG is committed to building error-free tolerance safety systems and will always promote the need for HSE competence development.
In a closing message, Monday Ovuede, NNPC/CNL Joint Ventures Director, advised everyone present to ensure compliance to the excellent practices that were discussed and implored CEOs/MDs to support the safeguard strategies discussed.
