Tag: Health, Safety, Security & Environment

Supplying information on safety incidents and thus contributing to safety flashes issued by the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA), is an important tool information and knowledge sharing tool. This year (2014) has seen a record number of safety incidents (over a hundred) issued in 19 flashes to members around the world. “This is a case of ‘more is good’,” explains IMCA’s Technical Director, Jane Bugler.”We want to encourage members to share safety incidents, it is a truism that ‘knowledge is power’ and knowing how others have dealt with hazardous situations helps fellow members. Of course we aim for the ‘holy

More people die or are injured in enclosed spaces than through any other related onboard work activity – this despite numerous guidelines, safety regimes, operational procedures, manuals and assurance surveys. One of the most public ‘confined space’ disasters was that of the Apollo 1 capsule on 27 January 1967. At 6.30pm that evening one of the astronauts reported a fire in the cockpit. All three – Gus Grissom, Ed White and Roger Chaffee – were dead in less than 20 seconds. Another incident took place when an employee of an oil facility climbed down a ladder into an innocent-looking water

The International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) has produced two important sets of statistics – ‘Safety and environment statistics for IMCA members: Report for the period 1 January-31 December 2013‘ and ‘World-wide diving personnel statistics for IMCA members: Statistics for 2012‘. “Safety and environment statistics are a useful insight into the performance of a company and industry sector in the areas of health, safety and environment,” explains IMCA’s Technical Director, Jane Bugler.”And our diving statistic aim to give a global snapshot of how many people are active in the industry on three specific dates in the year.” “The purpose of our

One of the activities specific to offshore operations is the transfer of personnel between vessels and other offshore structures. Such transfers can include movements of personnel at crew change and shift change from vessel to vessel and also between vessels, offshore structures (including offshore wind turbines), barges and crew boats as well as to and from the quayside. Safety of transfer is of paramount importance. The International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) has revised its ‘Guidance on the transfer of personnel to and from offshore vessels and structures’ (IMCA SEL 025 Rev. 1 / IMCA M 202 Rev. 1) to include

Occupational health programmes aim to anticipate and prevent health problems caused by work. All companies should have in place appropriate arrangements for the effective planning, organisation, control, monitoring and review of the necessary preventive and protective measures for workers, taking into account the activities the worker will be undertaking. The International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) has published high level guidance on this vital issue – ‘Guidance on Occupational Health’ (IMCA SEL 033) – which provides guidance on the physical and mental condition of all people at the workplace be they employees, contractors or visitors, and their protection from harm in

The offshore oil industry has focused its safety efforts over the past 20 to 30 years on preventing incidents and injuries to people, basically preventing slips, trips and falls – the occupational health and safety aspects. In parallel there have been efforts to prevent major incidents involving multiple fatalities, or asset threatening events, and Macondo and Montara have further emphasised the need to continue to emphasise the need for prevention. The International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA), in its guidance, has addressed major events through, for example, its work on dynamic positioning (DP) and hence collision avoidance, engine room safety and

Every year the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) produces an annual report of safety statistics (covering fatalities and injuries) supplied by members. “Safety statistics are a useful insight into the performance of a company and industry sector in the areas of health, safety and environment,” explains Hugh Williams, Chief Executive of IMCA. We publish the figures to record the safety performance of IMCA contractor members each year and to enable them to benchmark their performance. “Our statistics for the period 1 January-31 December 2011 were provided by 195 companies and organisations, representing around 60% of our marine contractor membership, and

A call for papers has been published for the 2013 International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) safety, environment and legislation seminar, which will be held on 19 – 20 February 2013 in Dubai, UAE with the theme ‘Major incident prevention in marine operations’. A template for submissions is available from events@imca-int.com, and the deadline for submissions is 7 September. “Our theme provides plenty of scope for would-be presenters,” explains IMCA’s Technical Director, Jane Bugler. “Topics may include a wide range of safety, environmental, health and legislation issues, including successful initiatives to improve company/industry performance, current issues and lessons learnt from incidents

Piracy is a threat to all sizes of vessels in some parts of the world. The more we know, the more we can minimise the risks and react to dangerous situations – or avoid them altogether. To this end the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) has produced an Anti-Piracy & Hostage Situation Awareness DVD (IMCA SEL 028) in five languages on the one DVD (English, French, Spanish, Italian and Portuguese) as guidance for personnel working on board vessels operating in high risk areas. “The DVD runs for just over 15 minutes and covers a range of measures intended to compliment

The International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) publishes a range of logbooks in which offshore personnel can record their training, competence assessments and working experience. The latest to be published, the 15th in the series, is the Safety Adviser Logbook complementing the existing IMCA competence table for this role. As with other IMCA logbooks, it can be used to record employment, qualifications, certificates and continuous professional development, as well as on-going competence assessment. The logbooks provide a consistent format that can be recognised by a variety of employing contractors and the training and competence sections cover all aspects required for assessments

Safety Coaching’ and ‘Workplace Fatigue’ are the two latest pocket safety cards in the series published by the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) “These are card numbers 20 and 21 in the popular and effective series,” explains Hugh Williams, IMCA’s Chief Executive. “The safety coaching card includes a list of key aspects of the role of a coach, encouraging people to stop and think and provide objective and honest feedback. As we say on the card ‘you don’t need to have ‘Coach’ in your job title to undertake coaching – particularly when it comes to safety. Coaching, like any other