Proactive Safety Campaign in Kuwait Reduces Personnel Injury Incidents to Zero

Abstract

The well services division of an oilfield services company in Kuwait initiated a safety campaign to support field personnel in a proactive approach to personnel injury prevention. The initiative targets the root causes of personnel injury incidents; i.e., human behavior, poor hazard identification, failure to intervene and stop at-work risk behaviors, and non-compliance with recommended procedures and standards. The foundation of the campaign is the personal commitment from all employees involved to follow safe work procedures at all times. Additionally, the initiative established the role of a safety coach who observes crews at work, identifies potentially unsafe situations and intervenes when necessary, coaches individuals, challenges performance, and leads safety meetings focused on individual tasks or subtasks. Management is actively involved in the campaign by making safety visits to wellsites, to better understand the issues facing the crews, demonstrate support of the crews, and participate in the observation and intervention program. Inventories of the tasks at each wellsite are incorporated into site-specific risk assessments. Compliance to standards is supported by ensuring that the standards are clear and are understood by all of the field personnel. Complementing the safety campaign were exercises to help the personnel understand how an individual’s personality impacts their response to different situations. After these activities, debriefing sessions were conducted to highlight positive behaviors, identify areas for improvement, compile lessons learned, and formulate action items. The most important result of the campaign to date is a reduction in the incident rate for the pumping services unit to zero incidents. In addition, the increase in the reporting rate of hazardous situations, interventions following observation, and field audits indicates that the campaign heightens safety awareness and understanding of safe practices. This campaign is currently being extended to other segments in Kuwait and is being pilot tested by a major drilling contractor with the support of the operator.