Santos: The process safety management journey

Abstract

Over the past five years Santos has introduced a new management discipline called process safety.

This has been achieved through formalising existing practices, particularly around reliability and maintenance strategy, as well as benchmarking against industry leaders to introduce other aspects such as process safety awareness, design and operating philosophies.

During the early 2000s Santos was focussed on establishing a company-wide environmental health and safety management system (EHSMS) and programs to build a safe and environmentally conscious culture.

For the first two revisions of its operation, the EHSMS contained safety standards relating to personnel hazards such as heat, driving, heights and chemicals. A vigorous audit program was introduced to assist all operating sites and activities, improving their systems to effectively manage environment, health and safety risks.

Santos now recognises that the establishment of a process safety culture involves five key aspects:

1. the right platform to build upon;

2. a separate identity, with specific standards defining requirements;

3. effective integration into existing processes;

4. audits dedicated to process safety that identify a baseline to measure against; and,

5. monitoring processes and personnel safety performance with equal interest.