In its continuing drive to help raise safety standards in the local energy sector, LNG producer Atlantic was recently re-certified as a Safe To Work (STOW) company.
This comes on the heels of Atlantic’s recent achievement of 15 million hours of work without a Lost Time Incident (LTI) at its Point Fortin facility.
Nigel Darlow, CEO, Atlantic said that the STOW re-certification testified to the company’s deep commitment to best practices in the areas of Health, Safety and the Environment (HSE).
“ In the energy sector, process plants have inherent HSE risks that have to be identified and mitigated ,” Mr. Darlow explained. “T he true measure of any process facility is how safely it operates. STOW helps Atlantic achieve HSE performance that matches global standards. At the end of the day, we want all our employees and all our contractors to return home safely to their families .”
The Safe To Work (STOW) initiative is a joint effort of the Energy Chamber, the Association of Upstream Operators of Trinidad and Tobago (AUOTT) and the Point Lisas Energy Association (PLEA). It was established to develop consistent HSE requirements to pre-qualify service providers and contractors in the energy sector, and to make it easier for these companies to get on the bid lists of the major oil and gas operating companies. In 2010, Atlantic was the first operating company to be STOW certified.
“ STOW is intended for contractor and service provider companies, but Atlantic volunteered to undergo the certification process to demonstrate that we operate with the same rigourous HSE requirements that we expect of our contractors ,” Mr. Darlow said. “ If Atlantic can perform to the STOW standard, then we want to work with contractors that can also perform to this standard .”
“ We are calling on service providers and contractors to become STOW certified. When the HSE best practice in STOW becomes universally adopted, then the safety performance of the entire local energy sector will improve ,” Mr. Darlow said. “ This will help to enhance productivity, and keep Trinidad and Tobago competitive in global energy markets .”
As part of its corporate strategy, Atlantic benchmarks its performance in select areas of its operation against the performance of other LNG facilities around the world. In an annual benchmark survey of LNG companies, Atlantic’s Lost Time Injury Frequency (LTIF) rate of zero has been the industry best-in-class for the last four years.
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LNG World News Staff, February 28, 2012; Image: Bechtel