Employees at Pump Station Georgia 2
Within bp our operating businesses are accountable for delivering safe, reliable and compliant operations. They have the responsibility to identify and manage risks and bring together people with the right skills and competencies
Our focus is on safe, reliable and compliant operations. Protecting our people and plant while delivering excellent performance is a key priority
Employees at the site
How we operate
It is an explicit requirement of our OMS that sites carry out self verification for health, safety, security and environment checks
They work in collaboration with deployed safety specialists and are subject to independent scrutiny and assurance.Our ability to be a safe and responsible operator depends in part on the capability and performance of our contractors, suppliers and partners. We address this in a variety of ways including training and requiring adherence to operational standards in legally binding agreements.
We seek to identify and manage risks in the supply chain relating to safety, corruption and money laundering, and aim to have sustainability-related provisions in our contracts with suppliers and contractors.
Working locally
We continue to take steps towards the systematic management of our environmental impacts.
We have long taken a systematic approach to the management of environmental issues in Georgia, not least because of the commitments we made under the environmental and social action plan which was developed during pipeline construction and necessitated a rigorous approach to action tracking and closure. The management system is based on the ISO 14001 ‘plan-do-check-act’ cycle, which is also fully incorporated into the OMS improvement cycle.
The effectiveness of our environmental performance is also regularly reviewed by other audits such as the annual reviews by the independent environmental consultant appointed on behalf of the original project lenders.
Responsibility for implementing and maintaining the environmental management system (EMS) rests with the leadership team. The Georgia compliance and environment team is responsible for EMS co-ordination and maintenance, while the regulatory compliance and environment director oversees the system across the BP regional business. At site level, site managers are responsible for its maintenance.
Managing safety
We continue to apply our operating management (OMS) system to govern our operations and drive safe and reliable performance
As part of our ongoing work to achieve conformance with OMS requirements, we undertake self-verification activities to check our performance against each system requirement.
We put plans in place to maintain conformance to standards, with the aim of reducing risk and deliver sustainably safe performance.
Our commitment to no accidents, no harm to people and no damage to the environment remains unchanged as a business priority.
Ensuring the safety of our processes
In addition to personal safety, we focus on maintaining the integrity of our operating systems and processes by applying good design principles, engineering and operating and maintenance practices process safety.
We outline key process safety risks within site induction and encourage people to report process safety incidents.
We have a range of monthly reviews of different aspects of process safety, such as operational risk assessments and reviews of conformance with standard operating procedures and safe systems of work.
At monthly management meetings led by engineering and technical professionals, we review key process safety and integrity management performance indicators.
Many of these are ‘leading’ indicators which give an indication of the strength of our controls. We report, record and monitor minor leaks or spills to help us improve performance and try to minimize the risk of more serious incidents.
Assessing, prioritizing and managing risk.
The BP Georgia risk assessment feeds into wider risk assessments covering operations in Georgia and Azerbaijan.
Our goal is to continuously improve prevention barriers and mitigation measures to maintain effective risk identification, prevention and management.
Maintaining a safe work environment
We carry out a range of self-verification activities to make sure that personal safety is not being compromised.
These include checks on day-to-day work covering tasks such as lifting, working at heights, electrical equipment testing, confined space entry, hot work, energy isolation, excavation, scaffolding and the use of personal protective equipment.
Our health and safety site leads have the role of advising operations on how to continuously improve performance, conducting self-verification activities and inspections and supporting OMS conformance.
On a daily basis they focus and process safety related tasks and oversee contractors’ activities. They participate in and review Control of Work risk assessments to ensure that hazards are identified and adequately addressed.
They also participate in incident investigations to determine root causes and develop corrective actions, coordinate emergency exercises, facilitate and lead safety meetings and HSE awareness campaigns.
Control of Work
Wherever BP operates, systematic implementation of the group’s Control of Work practice is a must for BP employees and contractors.
Control of Work requires that all work activities are planned well in advance and delivered by competent people. Task related risks must be assessed and managed, and the work controlled and executed under permit.
Most importantly, control of work obliges everyone to stop unsafe work. Its processes provide a work environment that allows tasks to be completed safely and without unplanned loss of containment, which could damage the environment, plant or equipment.
Environment
BP is working to avoid, minimize and mitigate environmental impacts wherever we do business
Environment
Throughout the life cycle of our projects and operations, we aim to manage environmental impacts and address any related impacts on local communities
Environment and social impact
We take a systematic approach to the management of environmental issues in Georgia.
We carried out thorough Environmental and Social Impact Assessments (ESIA) when first developing the BTC and SCP pipelines, which resulted in commitments in an environmental and social action plan.
We have recently completed an ESIA for the SCPX project. These processes identify potential impacts and mitigations and necessitate a rigorous approach to action tracking and closure.
Our environmental management system is based on the ISO 14001 ‘plan-do-check-act’ cycle, which is fully incorporated into the OMS improvement cycle.
The effectiveness of our environmental management is also assessed during annual reviews by the independent environmental consultant appointed on behalf of the original project lenders.
Responsibility for implementing and maintaining the EMS rests with the leadership team.
The Georgia compliance and environment team is responsible for EMS co-ordination and maintenance, while the regulatory compliance and environment director oversees the system across the BP regional business. Site managers are responsible for its maintenance in the field.
In everything we do we aim to avoid, minimize or mitigate environmental impacts.
We continue to work to raise contractors’ awareness of environmental matters and to help align all projects with the requirements of our environmental management system.
We use an environmental risk assessment tool for individual projects and modifications to give ourselves assurance that requirements are being met in the field.
We obtain site completion reports that show how environmental requirements have been addressed.
Managing waste
We are continually working to find innovative and efficient ways to reduce and manage waste.
We have sought to reduce hazardous waste by buying modern equipment for waste processing and have been putting waste products and substances to good use – such as using them as a source of energy.
The majority of hazardous waste from our activities, such as oily rags or sludge, has been collected, compacted and stored at a central waste accumulation area at PSG1 on the BTC pipeline.
Historically, hazardous waste was prepared for export to EU-compliant facilities outside Georgia because local recycling companies were notable to ensure its safe disposal.
We have now evaluated Georgian operators who could operate an EU compliant hazardous waste incinerator, and are looking to work with a local company to do this.
The establishment of a facility of this type would represent a significant step forward in the development of national waste management capability.
Plastic waste recycling
We have continued to recycle paper, plastic and metal, working with Georgian companies that now have the capability to recycle different types of waste products.
Our incident management system includes commitments related to responding to an incident were wildlife suffer from the effects of oil.
We have built a wildlife response centre adjacent to the oil spill response base at PSG1 and ran an emergency response exercise on wildlife protection.
The wildlife rehabilitation centre is supplied with equipment in line with best international practice.
To test our preparedness to respond to an incident involving oiled wildlife, we have undertaken three sets of training for volunteers, delivered by International Bird Rescue and the Oil Spill Training Company Ltd.
Training has been provided to representatives from non-governmental and state institutions, local certified veterinarians and volunteers.
With the support of BP personnel, 36 volunteers participated in training at locations near the Jandari and Tsalka lake shorelines, chosen because of their ecological sensitivity.
The initiatives tested our wildlife response preparedness and included identifying baselines, examining potential environmental impacts, and assessing different tiers of possible response.
Spill behaviour was modelled, using geographic information systems, and communication plans were tested.
A theoretical element was complemented by tests of the wildlife response equipment stocked at the center to assess approaches to mobilization, deployment and operations.
The exercises were concluded with analysis of lessons learned. Findings and recommendations were shared among the participants.
We maintain comprehensive systems to stay compliant with applicable HSE requirements.
As a result, we identified specific tasks which need to be carried out by operations and environment staff to make sure we remain compliant.
These items are maintained in a compliance task manager database, which enables required actions to be tracked.
The development and early implementation of the SCPX project has been a multi-disciplinary effort that incorporates lessons learned from past projects and operations in Georgia.
Productive cooperation continued with project staff through the review of the ESIA addendum and close coordination on waste management.
Complying with our commitments
The audits monitor compliance with BTC environmental and social commitments. No non-compliances were identified.
We work with contractors to try to make sure they meet our environmental standards, we included detailed clauses within our contractual terms and conditions relating to environmental management.
Provisions covered topics such as waste management, flora and fauna, air and water quality, and ecological management.