Today, Methanex in Egypt and ECHEM organized a Process Safety Management (PSM) workshop titled “Enabling Egypt’s process safety journey.” Held under the auspices of the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, the workshop was attended by ECHEM Chairman Mr. Saad Helal, and Methanex in Egypt CEO and Managing Director Mr. Mohamed Shindy along with over 200 leaders and executives of the petrochemicals and downstream oil & gas industry in Egypt.
The workshop’s keynote speakers included international PSM experts Deb Grubbe, owner and President of Operations and Safety Solutions LLC, Ken Rivers, President of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and Chairman of UK’s Control of Major Hazards (COMAH) Strategic Forum and Dr. Jason Clement, Director of Process Safety Management at Methanex Corporation.
The workshop comes as part of Methanex’s vision of sharing the company’s own journey towards safer processes, assets and operations, as part of its own commitment to Responsible Care, and to safety within the petrochemicals sector. Commenting on the workshop, Mr. Mohamed Shindy said: “Process safety management is important to Methanex because it protects the people who trust us to operate safely – our employees, contractors, families and communities.” He added “As a key player in the petrochemicals sector, we believe that we have an integral role to play in empowering a broader group of the industry’s leaders, including ourselves, to drive continuous improvement in the sector’s process safety. The safe containment and control of process hazards inherent within our industry is critical to ensuring the safety of the communities and individuals involved.”
The workshop’s first session by Deb Grubbe introduced the basics of PSM, its different models, its importance, key success factors and the different process safety risks and their mitigations. This was followed by a session by Ken Rivers, around the role of leadership in PSM, the challenges leaders face and what good governance looks like. The final presentation by Jason Clement showcased the recent PSM efforts and journey of Methanex.
PSM is a set of interrelated approaches to managing hazards associated with the process industries and is intended to reduce the frequency and severity of incidents resulting from releases of chemicals and other energy sources. These approaches are composed of organizational and operational procedures, design guidance, audit programs, and a host of other methods that prevent accidents that can cause serious harm to people and the environment.