RBG that was recently acquired by Stork Technical Services, held its inaugural REACHing Out forum last week as the company aims to enhance the HSEQ performance of its employee community and wider oil and gas industry.

More than 70 business leaders and HSEQ experts from across the UKCS attended the event which was held at the Marcliffe Hotel, Aberdeen.

James Munro, operations manager, offshore division for the Health and Safety Executive (HSE), presented on the HSE’s immediate and medium term safety focus areas and said: “Safety is, and has been for many years, a major focus in oil and gas operations. The industry has made progress, however there is still scope for improvement. HSE supports sharing and discussing best practice in an open forum, such as REACHing Out, and it is one aspect of developing safer working practices.”

Keynote presentations from the Health and Safety Executive, Talisman Energy (U.K) Limited (“Talisman”), Centrica, Wood Group PSN and GlaxoSmithKline discussed a number of key industry issues including how to improve hydrocarbon release prevention, maintain the highest safety standards in a decommissioning environment and the importance of process safety.

Ian Buchan, hydrocarbon release prevention manager for Talisman, said: “Talisman is keen to support the sharing of information across the industry and REACHing Out provided an excellent opportunity to do so.”

The event was held under the banner of RBG’s REACH HSEQ initiative which was launched in December 2009 and radically improved the company’s safety performance and HSEQ engagement. The first anniversary of the REACH launch was met with a 51.2% reduction in UK lost time frequency and 38.5% globally.

REACH will be implemented across Stork Technical Services’ global operations in the coming months and will define the company’s HSEQ culture, values, goals, standards and working practices.

Dave Workman, CEO for RBG, said; “REACHing Out was crucial for us as we continually strive to improve and achieve HSEQ excellence at all times. We had an excellent line-up of keynote speakers and the event was a great success.”

Mike Mann, SVP for global HSEQ for Stork Technical Services, said: “We are committed to delivering first class safety performance on every job and every task but this can only be achieved by working hand-in-hand with Operators and our peers. By discussing the issues that directly affect our customers and employee community we can identify areas that need closer collaboration to improve standards.”

Tags: RBG Limited