Industrial Safety
The risk of explosion is only too real and can lead to devastating consequences and catastrophic losses not only in tangible, potentially replaceable assets such as physical structures – but more, ominously, can result in irrecoverable ones such as lives, livelihoods and …reputations.
Perhaps that is no more demonstrable than in the case of the unfortunate explosion of the piper-alpha oil-exploration platform off the UK’s northern shores - east of the Scottish city of Aberdeen in July 1988.
Although the then operating oil-company’s material losses were grave in the following the complete destruction of the oil platform, the true loss was counted in lives, the lives of the 167 engineers and others who perished leaving behind devastated families. not to mention of course the financial and reputational ruin that befell the company itself in the aftermath of the platform’s explosion.
Since then, many lesser incidents have taken place and oil companies as well as others operating in explosion-risk zones have, since, become sensitised to the palpable risk of an unforeseen explosion.
Fertilizers can also lead to unimaginable scale devastation as recently seen in Lebanon after a depot in Beirut’s seaport exploded causing mind-defying devastation.
Since many of our clients are from sectors such as, oil and gas, mining & quarries as well as pharma, process industries and aggrotech, we decided long ago to institute a safety and industrial-hazard mitigation service to help concerned operators with their moral and legal obligations to mitigate against explosion-risk and safeguard against reputational-damage that is almost certain to ensue in the aftermath of an incident.
Particularly vulnerable zones such as refineries, fertiliser production and storage facilities, tunnels, and subterranean mining. etc. should be explosion-risk-stratified in-line with the ATEX regulatory framework, or an equivalent, benchmark.
Together with leading explosion-proofing partners like Miretti Srl, we stand ready at WEST to advise, guide and assist companies in mitigating their operational, compliance and reputational risks.
After all, it makes compelling business sense!