PTTEP's Drive toward Behavioural-Based Safety (BBS) Improvement
Authors: Pipitsangchand Susama , Brown Peter , Vongkulbhisal Mongkut 
Published: December 2007

Over the past two decades, the upstream oil and gas industry has been successful in reducing incident frequency by adopting improved engineering solutions and sophisticated safety management systems. However, safety performance has reached a plateau in many companies, including PTTEP; despite all the money and effort being spent, there has been no statistical improvement between one year’s performance and the next.

From analysis of past year’s safety statistics of major companies, it was discovered that the root cause of most accidents resulted from or at least concerned "personnel behaviour".

Management of "personnel behavior" is then an essential role in the control of risk.

Behavioural Based Safety (BBS) is recognized as an established methodology used to attain performance excellence in the field of Safety, Security, Health and Environment (SSHE). It does not replace all of the good-and necessary-work of traditional systems and procedures; rather, it complements and enhances these approaches.

Behavioural Based Safety management programs focus on preventing injuries by promoting SSHE awareness and preventing the unsafe behaviours that lead to incidents in the first place. By dramatically reducing unsafe behaviors, the consequential injuries are also reduced.

Although PTTEP performance in terms of Lost Time Injury Frequency (LTIF) is considerably better when compared with the average OGP (International Association of Oil & Gas Producers) (See Figure 1.), it is PTTEP’s top management direction to proactively looking for areas of improvement in order to aggressively control all potential hazards that could lead to major losses in PTTEP operations before they develop into major accidents.

In order to improve PTTEP Behavioural Based Safety management programs, all existing SSHE awareness promotion schemes; during the past few years were reviewed and improved with the aim of increasing Safety, Security, Health and Environment awareness and consciousnesses of all personnel. These SSHE awareness promotion schemes included:

Training, Committee meeting, Bulletin, Learning from experience, Alert, Information Board, SSHE promotion campaigns (monthly quiz, unsafe act / condition reporting campaign), Exhibition Week, Contractor SSHE Forum, etc.

In 2006, a "Behavioural Based Safety (BBS) Evaluation" was conducted for PTTEP operations (Bongkot, Songkhla Logistics Base, S1, PTTEP1 and the Corporate Head office). The objectives of the evaluation were to analyze the current status of personnel behaviour and to obtain professional recommendations to further promote personnel safety behaviour in our operations.

Throughout the evaluation period, about 170 personnel from top management to onsite operators were interviewed and the working activities of about 400 personnel were observed by the external experts.

A "PTTEP roadmap to improve Behavioural Based Safety (BBS)", was then discussed among all concerned personnel, and it was agreed that the two most significant basic issues to act on as priorities to improve PTTEP Safety, Security, Health and Environment performance are:

1) SSHE organisation structure review and 2) Corporate SSHE Management System (SSHE MS) / management practices Improvement.

Subsequently, the external experts were asked to assist PTTEP in improving these identified significant issues in order to address PTTEP readiness in embarking on a safety journey toward Behavioural Based Safety excellence in the future. Additionally, Felt Leadership Workshop for operational related managers as well as individual Felt Leadership interviews with the PTTEP President and all Vice Presidents were conducted to assist our management in managing their day to day and long term SSHE responsibilities.

As part of PTTEP Behavioural Based Safety improvement program, starting from Q4-2006, several new SSHE awareness promotion schemes were also established at PTTEP e.g. Safety observation program, SSHE slogan competition campaign, etc.

This is only PTTEP’s first step in approaching Behavioural Based Safety Improvement. We realize that the successful of BBS improvement plans depends on the level of involvement of everyone from top management to onsite operators.