Jum'ah: Get Home Safely
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Author: Saudi Aramco News
Released 13 February 2008
JIDDAH, February 13, 2008 -- As executives toured Saudi Aramco assets around the city of Jiddah, the message to employees was clear: Go to work safely, and go home to your families safely.
“Based on the literature and investigation reports about all accidents that happen in our company, and in all oil and gas companies, every accident was preventable,” president and CEO Abdallah S. Jum‘ah told employees gathered for an Executive Management Safety Review for the Jiddah Area. “Every one of them was caused either by someone doing something he shouldn’t have done - a commission - or by someone not doing something he was supposed to do - an omission.”
When management visited Jiddah Refinery, employees gave presentations about challenges the facility faces and detailed immediate steps put in place to safeguard workers and equipment and long-term projects to remove hazards permanently.
Process engineer Khalid S. Najdeyan briefed visitors on the refinery’s safety and environmental enhancements, including upgrades of the firefighting water system and the refinery’s smoke-detection systems.
Najdeyan also explained the efforts to create and ensure a positive safety culture - including workshops, orientations and careful attention to near-miss reports - and an unsafe behavior observer program.
Executives also toured the Marine Terminal, Intercity Product Pipelines, the Strategic Reserves facility, the Training Center and the North Jiddah Bulk Plant. “From what we have seen today Jiddah Refinery and Loss Prevention have put in place a rational framework for safety,” Jum‘ah said. The key is to keep the momentum moving forward, and this applies to all facilities. We have a very good program, but we have to ensure its execution.”
Executives stopped often during the tour and asked operators whether they knew what to do if something went wrong. The operators didn’t disappoint them and outlined the steps that would be taken to ensure the protection of employees and assets.
“When I toured the refinery, I was very pleased to see both short-term and long-term solutions to problems in place and this heightened awareness among employees for safe operations,” Jum‘ah said.
As is typical of safety statistics companywide, off-the-job injuries are more numerous than those incurred on the job.
“When we have accidents, we lose lives on the job, and we lose lives off the job. Off the job, we see that the roads are killers,” he said.
“We lose many more people off the job in car accidents than we do in our operations,” Jum‘ah said. “We have to work at prevention - not at reaction. When there is an accident, we don’t need a new program.”
Jum‘ah said concerns about safety shouldn’t just come from headquarters.
“It is all about attitude,” he said. “We have many rules and many regulations. We have incredible connectivity so that we can check on things, but at the end of the day, it is execution, execution, execution.”
That concern for safe execution applies both on the job and off the job with family and friends.
“I also was pleased to see the badges the employees at Jiddah Refinery were wearing with pictures of children on them,” said Jum‘ah. “The message was ‘Go to work safely, and come home safely.’ I can’t put it any simpler than that.”
(Article by Stephen L. Brundage)