10 December 2012

Costain Natural Resources Division has taken a step to improve further its already high safety standards.

The Division is adding a greater focus on process safety to its existing portfolio of occupational safety measures. The resulting policy is known as Total Safety.

Process safety focuses on the potential for major accidents arising from the release of energy, chemicals or other substances and is the systematic approach to reduce and mitigate any risk associated with the design or operation of facilities where these hazards are present.

“The need for safety in these situations is paramount,” said John Meakin, Operations Director for the Natural Resources Division.

“Accidents, whilst very rare, pose potentially severe consequences to people and the environment. Ensuring that we have the best safety procedures and working practices in place demands that we rigorously test them and compare them to industry-acknowledged leading standards.

To achieve the required standards, Costain will be implementing the Energy Institute’s (EI) ‘High Level Framework for Process Safety Management’. The EI is a nationally recognised professional body for the energy industry that delivers best practice and professionalism across the sector.

“Before committing to the EI framework, and to get an independent perspective on our existing safety systems, we commissioned an independent consultant to review our strategy and current practices. The key findings positively endorsed both our current safety systems and the decision to adopt the framework.”

To help this become a reality, we will be appointing a Divisional Safety Director who will be accountable for Process Safety Management within Costain. The Director will be responsible for ensuring that process safety is being implemented in line with the EI framework, putting necessary procedures in place and getting the commitment of staff to make sure these procedures are being implemented.”

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