Safety is INEOS’ top priority. And everyone in the company knows it. But it’s always heart-warming when industry experts recognise what the company is striving to achieve – and publicly acknowledge it.
The voice of the chemical industry in France has named Petroineos as worthy winners of a prestigious national award for its innovative approach to caring for the well-being of its staff.
The Union des Industries Chimiques, The French trade association for the chemicals sector, presented the Lavera site with the Responsible Care award in the occupational health category for the way the company now prevents staff being exposed to certain products.
“The use of biological indicators of exposure in itself is not new,” said Jacques Willocquet, HSSE manager at the French site. “But in most cases it is limited to a yes/no response. What we have done is introduce a rigorous statistical analysis of thousands of results, which allows us to detect the slightest change so we know if a member of staff has been exposed to even a small amount.”
The award is presented every three years.
This year’s award ceremony coincided with the Journées de la Chimie, which meant the event was attended by many high-profile guests, including Arnaud Montebourg, France’s Industry Minister.
“Apart from the fact that the award reflects well on INEOS’ reputation in the petrochemical industry, it also shows the staff how tracking relentlessly weak signals is helping us to better care about their health,” said Jacques.
Petroineos beat 17 other companies to win the occupational health category.
Across the Atlantic, staff at INEOS’ O&P Battleground Manufacturing Complex (BMC) in Texas were also celebrating after picking up four awards at the Texas Chemical Council’s (TCC) annual awards.
The plant won the Caring for Texas Award, the Zero Contractor Incident Rate Award and the Distinguished Safety Service Award in recognition of its exemplary safety performance last year.
But the big award of the night went to Bob Bradshaw for his outstanding leadership skills in managing the plant safely.
He won The Gerald R. Ehrman Award for Management in honour of Jerry Ehrman, a retired plant manager of the Sabine River Works in Orange, Texas, who was extremely dedicated to occupational safety. The award is presented to just one site manager every year – if one merits it. But so far it has only been presented to two people in the past four years and one of those was Bob.
“The award is only given to a plant manager who embodies the same leadership and dedication to safety management as Mr Ehrman,” said Morgan French, BMC SSHE Manager. “Bob is unrelenting in his goal to make sure everyone who works at the site goes home at the end of their shift safely, every day. He demonstrates a genuine personal commitment to safety excellence and challenges everyone who works with him to attain a comparable level of personal safety excellence.”