World's largest oil exporter and home to the world's largest oil processing facility, Saudi Arabia contributes to 25 per cent of Arab GDP and is ranked fifth globally for fiscal freedom. Apart from Oil & Gas, the industry that is setting for high growth in GCC, particularly Saudi Arabia, is the chemical industry with the plastics segment being the strongest performer globally. These are the industries where process safety incidents can have catastrophic effects like multiple fatalities, major assets loss, environmental damage which may also have a negative impact on the nation's economy.

Implementation of process safety management therefore becomes important in these industries. In a pre-event interview for Kingdom Process Safety Workshop, Niranjan Mathkari, Process Safety Technology Leader at Sadara Chemical Company, said, “As the industry continues to evolve, a strong business case is emerging. There is a significant cost from property damage, business interruption, remediation and loss of image through bad publicity. Risk may be as high as complete loss of business. Process Safety Management is well justified to sustain a business.”

Learning from past incidents is also considered an essential tool in the world of process safety. Md Idris Bin Salim, Senior HSE Advisor, Saudi Aramco, one of the speakers at the event, said, “ Most causal factors and root causes of major accidents were investigated to be related to mistakes and errors in process safety management. By analyzing and ensuring measures for addressing the root causes, similar process safety accidents can then be prevented.” As far as challenges are concerned in implementing process safety management, he says, “ Integrating the great process safety efforts through Operational Excellence (OE) management system enables major oil and gas companies to ensure effective process safety management implementation with other OE elements”.

Elaborating further on operational excellence and how it can be achieved by connecting process safety management to day to day operations will be David Ross, Business Consultant for Petrotechnics. Petrotechnics is the Strategic Sponsor for the event and will be present at Kingdom Process Safety Workshop to be held on 5 – 6 May 2015 at Sofitel Al Khobar, The Corniche, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

Technology solutions are also being contemplated to address critical business processes. However, there is a need to balance technology with human interaction. Doug Deardorf, Chief Executive Officer, for NiSoft UK Ltd, another sponsor for the event, said, “ There are things that technologies can do faster and more efficiently than humans, however, these often exist within the context of an overall process which requires the synthesis of information which may be best performed by people possessing the proper skills and experience. The key in utilizing technology is to automate the right aspects of a process flow and freeing up personnel time to focus on or address the higher level or overall process. ”

The event organized by Fleming Gulf is gaining momentum because of the impressive line up of speakers from companies like Saudi Aramco, Sadara Chemical Company, Ras Gas, Sadaf, Almarai amongst others and companies like Petrotechnics, HSS Engineering, Intertek, NiSoft, Alimak Hek, Al Maymanah for trading co ltd. sponsoring the event.