Bapco's health and safety performance was yesterday hailed as one of the best in the industry.  The message was relayed at the company's annual safety awards, held at the Bapco Club in Awali.

General manager of refining and Industrial Safety Committee acting chairman Nowrooz Faraz also gave an overview of the company's accomplishments last year.

He revealed the Refinery Gas Desulphurisation Project went through last year without any Lost-Time Accidents (LTAs) and subsequently achieved two million employee LTA-free hours in January.

Bapco also sustained only two LTAs last year, the second lowest total in five years.

Chief executive Abdulkarim Al Sayed praised the dedication, awareness and participation of workers and the co-operation of contractors in helping to introduce some of the best safety programmes in the Gulf.

"We should all be proud to be working for a company that can boast about its safety records which ranks with the best in both regional and international oil companies and I feel confident that we collectively can sustain our current success and go on to accomplish further milestones," he said.

In the high risk category of the Bapco Department Awards, the winner was the Awali Services Department, while the Reliability Engineering Department won in the low risk category.

The winner of the large contractor group was Al Komed, while the Nass Mechanical Services Company won the small contractor group.

The special award went to Bapco's Drilling Department for having shown improvement in Health and Safety Performance audits and accident statistics.-TradeArabia News Service