Accidents will happen, but ...

London – Who would have thought that we could have another major offshore incident so soon after the Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico?

Thankfully, though, the latest soundings from Total are that the gas leak on the Elgin platform in the North Sea won’t lead to environmental damage anywhere near the scale of such major disasters.

However, the incident, which could last for months, will do damage to the reputation of the company and of the process industries: adding to the public perception of an industrial sector unwilling or unable to learn from its mistakes.

One recent initiative that could significantly minimise these accidents is Process Safety Management (PSM), which seeks to get senior managers - from HR and sales directors to CFOs and CEOs - to engage in ensuring the safety of their process operations. (See related report)

So far, however, only 65 of the around 1000 COMAH sites in the UK process industries have joined the PSM initiative, which is being backed by Cogent and the National Skills Academy Process Industries.

With the patience of the HSE and the public now wearing thin, though, bosses of the remaining 935 or so companies might do well to consider starting down the PSM route, or risk putting both their own and other companies out of business.