Mark said that there is no other issue in constructing pipelines that has more importance than ensuring everyone goes home every night after they have finished work.
“To me safety is good business and I spend a lot of time on projects talking with everyone involved on how to achieve the safest project conditions,” he said when asked him about his passion for safety.
Mark said that there has been a focus in recent years by pipeline contractors, owners and project developers in Australia on having the world’s best practice in health and safety. In this way, he said, the issue of safety has changed over the years, with companies now ensuring “that our pipeline projects are the safest in the world and that everyone goes home each and every day.”
“The remote locations and at times extreme environment are a challenge but all involved insist on achieving the highest level for everyone on our projects.”
When Mark is asked how the attitude to safety compares now to forty years ago, he said “Forty years ago the pipeline construction industry’s attention to safety was at best cavalier and records were poor, eliminating any direct comparisons. However, I have been in the industry for 33 years and pipelining has always been safer than other parts of the construction industry.”
He said that the education and training of the workforce has been part of major improvements made in an endeavour to raise the level of awareness of safety issues. It has also become important, he said, to buy in to the health and safety programs that all pipeliners are morally bound to provide. The industry has also experienced an increase in health and safety professionals involved in every project, said Mark.
One change that has had the biggest impact on the industry in the last twenty years, according to Mark, has been the realisation that health and safety is not achieved by policing and dogmatic inspections. “The involvement of the supervision and their relation with the workforce to send clear and coherent messages” is one of the major changes that has been achieved. “Health and safety is everyone’s responsibility and no one has to work in an environment that is not safe,” said Mark.
With Lost Time Injuries (LTIs) becoming lower on projects nowdays, we asked Mark if he believes LTIs are still the best indicator of a safety record, to which he replied “To ensure we improve our health and safety on all sites, not only for the workforce but the community impacted by our pipeline projects, we have to focus on lead indicators such as near miss reporting and analysing trends in incidents in order to prevent accidents occurring.
“LTIs as a lag indicator show how your safety program has prevented lost time through accidents, but is not a true measure of the effectiveness of your safety program in minimising incidents, medical treatments and near misses.”
On the overall regulation framework for safety in Australia, and how things differ between the states, Mark said that although there are different regulations state by state, this is not an impediment to the key drivers for safe pipeline projects. Each pipeline contractor and pipeline owner has its own in-house safety programs which meet and exceed the state requirements, he said.
“At APIA we continue to promote our Construction Guidelines to have more uniformity on projects but, again, our pipeline projects are very safe,” said Mark.
He went on the say that differences in regulation between states impact on the initial development approvals and documentation – in which companies have to ensure they are meeting the individual state requirements – and, Mark said, this involves some effort.
Mark also outlined what the APIA Safety Committee has been up to recently, saying that in 2007 the Committee focused on updating the APIA Guidelines for Hydrotesting, Driving, and Remote Working as well as a revision to the Safety Guidelines. The Committee also initiated Safety Issues in Tender Documents, he said.
In 2008, the Safety Committee is going to conduct a seminar/open day on safe driving and safety with angle grinders and buffs. The Committee also plans to issue APIA Induction and Training passports to allow portability for the pipeline construction workforce.
We asked Mark what he thinks will be the next big safety issues for the industry to confront, and he replied “Whilst not a new issue, the biggest challenge is the training and upgrading the skills of the younger people joining the industry together with making us oldtimers understand our responsibility to setting the right example and behaviours.
“Safety awareness and understanding the risks involved in pipeline construction is critical to ensuring we maintain our excellent safety performance to date. However, with health and safety we can always improve and we need to be aware and open to all initiatives,” he said.
“And of course the big challenge is to ensure we have safe drivers on our spreads with vehicles that are suitably equipped with the latest technology to give us the best environment to have safe sites.”