COS Announces 2021 Safety Leadership Award Winners

The Center for Offshore Safety (COS) has announced the winners of the 2021 Safety Leadership Awards: Baker Hughes and Shell Offshore Inc.

Baker Hughes was recognized for its Time 2 Refocus - mindfulness techniques program, which is said to have been developed to enhance situational awareness when preforming routine tasks. The program was implemented using training materials, leadership training and personnel training to promote and teach mindfulness techniques that were easy to learn and apply, COS highlighted. As a result, Baker Hughes saw a 61 percent reduction in incidents in the second half of 2020 compared to the first half, as well as a 23 percent reduction in incidents in the first half of 2021 compared to the first half of 2020, COS noted.

Shell was recognized for its journey to reduce high potential dropped objects on production assets. The leadership of the company’s U.S. Gulf of Mexico production operations implemented a DROPS Strategy to address the risk of dropped objects in those operations. The lynchpin of the strategy was said to be a uniform DROPS manual, which addressed production-specific drop hazards and was created in collaboration with those working offshore performing the daily work. Since implementation of the DROPS Strategy, Shell’s Gulf of Mexico production organization has seen a decrease in high potential dropped objects from 14 in 2018 to five in 2020.

“This year’s winners leveraged data to develop actionable practices to mitigate common risks in offshore operations and enhance safety,” COS Senior Director Russell Holmes said in an organization statement.

“Information sharing to improve the collective knowledge of the industry is a core value for COS. The COS Safety Awards provide a venue to share good practices and support the industry’s commitment to continuously improve safety to reach our shared goal of zero incidents,” Holmes added in the statement.

Baker Hughes and Shell Offshore Inc were also crowned winners in last year’s COS awards. Baker Hughes was recognized for operationalizing human performance and Shell was recognized for a holistic approach to managing lifeboat safety.

The COS awards recognize companies for their “outstanding” leadership in developing safety management and performance practices and projects that advance the offshore industry’s culture of safety. The organization’s board reviews all nominations and selects finalists for the operator and contractor categories. Winners are then determined by vote during the annual COS forum by the board and attendees.

COS is an industry sponsored group focused exclusively on offshore safety on the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. The organization serves the U.S. offshore oil and natural gas industry with the purpose of adopting standards of excellence to ensure continuous improvement in safety and offshore operational integrity, according to its website.

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