The workshop took place between 8-9 March 2023 at TASNEE Beach Camp, Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia under the theme ‘Manage Risk, CHANGE It Right and START It Right!’
The Gulf Petrochemicals and Chemicals Association (GPCA)’s 3rd Process Safety Workshop was held successfully between 8-9 March 2023 at TASNEE Beach Camp, Al Jubail, Saudi Arabia, attracting 116 process safety and EHS&S experts from across the region.
Held under the theme ‘Manage Risk, CHANGE It Right and START It Right!’, the workshop began with opening remarks by Abdullah Al-Qahtani, Chief Engineer Process Risk Management, SABIC and Chairman, Gulf Process Safety Network, GPCA. Al-Qahtani began by sharing the top three future priorities to enhance the Responsible Care Codes of Management Practices, as follows: process safety, product stewardship and distribution, and environmental protection. This was according to a survey with 22 GPCA member companies, representing almost 70% of full GPCA members. Participants took part in the survey covering 10 areas exploring the benefits of the Responsible Care program.
He went on to highlight the work of the Gulf Process Safety Network, launched during the 4th GPCA Responsible Care Conference in November 2021.
Confidentiality, reputation, availability of platform, culture, value realization, and the quality of investigations were highlighted as the top challenges hindering the sharing of lessons learned. To address these challenges the GPSN will align with the Responsible Care Committee to encourage transparent sharing. They would develop a process safety lessons learned platform and measure the impact of sharing the lessons learned.
Khalid Al Khater, VP, Manufacturing, TASNEE, delivered the welcome note during the workshop in which he highlighted the role of enhancing process safety across manufacturing operations at companies in the region. He was followed on the podium by Jerry Forest, Senior Director of Process Safety, Celanese, who discussed risk screening, qualitative risk assessment, the importance of mitigating risk, and enabling an organizational change.
The agenda continued with presentations from:
- Ali Al-Ghannam, Production Engineer, TASNEE
- Mohammad Alaofi, Lead Process Safety Engineer, SABIC- YANSAB
- Kamleshkumar Modi, Head of Safety, QAFCO
- Raed Yasin, MSHEM Expert, Ma’aden
- Venkata Subramanian, Head, Process Safety, Q-Chem, and others.
The third in a series of workshops organized by the GPCA Gulf Process Safety Network (GPSN), the workshop was hosted by one of GPCA’s founding members, TASNEE, and provided a platform for sharing best practices related to the effective Management Of Change (MOC) and Operational Readiness (OR).
The GPCA Gulf Process Safety Network (GPSN) was launched during the 4th GPCA Responsible Care Conference in November 2021, with the objective to promote and support process safety excellence in the regional industry via effective and structured knowledge sharing and networking.
Building on these objectives the GPSN delivered two successful workshops in 2022 under the themes of ‘Process Safety Excellence via SMART and VIBRANT Metrics’ and ‘Structured Sharing, Towards Effective Learning’.