Oman’s pioneering fuel and lubricants marketing company has launched a Health, Safety, Security and Environmental (HSSE) awards scheme to promote the advancement of safety benchmarks within the company and the industry. Oman Oil Marketing Company’s (omanoil) ‘Best SOC and Near-Miss Awards’ encourages staff at all levels of the organisation to proactively engage on HSSE challenges and opportunities to formulate preventative measures with a vigilant and holistic culture of safety and sustainability that has authenticated the company’s prominence in the industry.
“Our undisputed HSSE reputation is unyielding and is based on the unified philosophy of preserving and enhancing environmental safety. The awards scheme is part of omanoil’s aim to establish emerging methods in progressing the levels of operational and environmental excellence in accordance with best international practices and HSSE standards,” said Faisal al Shanfari, omanoil General Manager of Operations, Engineering and HSSE.
Safety Observation Conversation (SOC) is a behavioural technique to sustain a company’s HSSE corporate culture by encouraging all employees to be accountable for maintaining safe operations. It is a systematic tool to detect and identify potential incidents in order to prepare a preventative line of action that follows zero-tolerance for accidents.
Omanoil will commend one employee from each of the five business units from Aviation to Finance with an SOC Award every quarter in 2012. Another initiative to advance operational standards is the monthly ‘Best Near-Miss Incident Report Award’ to motivate employees to report events occurring in the workplace and prevent any incidents with actual damage or injury.
Al Shanfari added, “The scheme celebrates our promise to realize the company’s goals without being neither complacent nor content and will continue to epitomize excellence in implementing responsible approaches.”
Omanoil encourages an amalgamated corporate culture of HSSE that has resulted in achievements that notably include a milestone of 19 years without loss-time injury at the JV Mina al Fahal Terminal. The company implements best practices at all forecourts by promoting road safety at filling stations and through the ‘be Safe’ Facebook campaign, while HSSE champions advocate safety within the company and among their peers.
