By Ejiofor Alike
Midwestern Oil and Gas Limited has recorded safety milestones with the attainment of 10 million man-hours of Lost Time Incident (LTI)-free operations.
Speaking to journalists in Lagos in commemoration of the safety feat achieved by the company, the company’s Executive Director in charge of Technical Services, Mr. Victor Okolo and the Manager, Health, Safety and Environment (HSE), Mr. Anthony Okoye attributed the feat to the commitment of the company’s management to safety.
Okolo described the achievement as a great feat in view of the challenges in the downstream sector.
“Now, our space is oil and gas upstream space. The oil and gas upstream space is a challenging environment, where we need to exercise a lot of caution in all our activities. Our activities go all the way from drilling operations to production activities and crude oil exports via our pipeline that we have. All these have different elements of risks attached to them. In conducting our operations, it is important that all the personnel who are involved in all the operations are as a minimum, able to go back home at the end of the day to meet their families and loved ones. This is something we have achieved so far and as at September 17 this year, 10 million man-hours have been performed without any incident of lost time injury. You can see that it is a very significant milestone. Ten million manhours in human years is a lot of years. But you must appreciate that we have several people, who are working simultaneously in our operations that cumulatively add up to 10 million man-hours that we are celebrating,” Okolo explained.
“We have our partners who include our employees; our contractors and their vendors who provide services to us. Without their contributions, we would not have been able to achieve this feat,” he added.
Okolo said apart from being the operator of the Umusadege oil field in Oil Mining Lease (OML) 56, the company is also a member of the Erotron consortium that acquired OML 18 from Shell, in addition to operating a pipeline.
He further stated that the company which started with a production of 3,000 barrels of crude oil per day now has the capacity to produce 30,000 barrels per day.
Okolo admitted that the attack on the Trans-Forcados Subsea pipeline by the Niger Delta militants has affected the operations of the company.
Speaking on the critical success factors responsible for the safety achievements, Okoye attributed it to the commitment of the management.
“First of all, the management’s commitment to safety was top notch from the managing director, and directors down to staff. There is one of the programmes we called Management Facility Inspections, which enable the top management to see what is going on not just here in Lagos but in the fields where the major hazards in our operations are resident,” Okoye said.
“So, this kind of programme goes on and we look at the business from the beginning to the end. What are the likely things that could impact on this business so that they are corrected? Of course, there are a number of other measures. For instance, the company went into collaboration with International Human Resources Development Corporation in the United States for HSSE e-learning. All these are geared towards improving the knowledge base of personnel in terms of safety,” Okoye added.
