Ali A. Kshawe and Narayanan Vasudevan have worked in field of HS&E for past 25 years. During their course of work in petroleum refining the authors have been actively involved in developing HSSE requirements for contractors in refinery and implementing the same.
Kuwait National Petroleum Company (KNPC) is a major oil refining company in the world. Like of most of oil and gas production facilities KNPC outsources their maintenance and project construction activities. Oil refining industries have inherent hazards and risks which need to be mitigated during maintenance and project execution. Certain activities of contractors have potential to place either contract personnel or operating personnel or facility at risk.
A sound contractor safety management will mitigate potential risk by having a proper system of contractor selection and monitoring their activities on day to day basis.
KNPC has developed a sound management system for all KPC subsidiaries. It begins with planning which include communication of risks of contract to potential bidders and the company HSSE management system which part of scope of contract. Each potential contractor has to undergo an HSSE prequalification. The objective of the HSE Pre-qualification is to screen potential contractors to establish that they have the necessary experience and capability to undertake the scope of work in an HSE responsible manner, and to effectively deal with the associated risks. The contractors who pass the prequalification are included in list of bidders.
