Social - Safety & Health | PETRONAS Chemicals Group Berhad (PCG)

Why It Matters

It is our responsibility to always prioritise the health and safety of our people.

Inculcating a strong Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) culture in our organisation safeguards our employees and helps boost their morale. This enables our workforce to deliver excellence in their day-to-day activities, which in turn leads to better productivity.

Upholding good HSE practices is also crucial for our operating licence. By maintaining high standards and regulatory compliance, we can better protect our assets, mitigate financial, legal and operational risks, as well as maintain the trust of our stakeholders.

To ensure that we adhere to the best HSE practices in our industry, we are also guided by our HSE policy, which outlines our commitment and principles towards achieving our HSE vision and goals.

Additionally, we have obtained various HSE certifications that demonstrate our compliance with international standards and regulations. These include ISO 14001 and OHSAS 18001.

Our Approach

We consider HSE excellence as a core value and productivity driver, not a burden.

Through our HSE Strategy, we strive to achieve best-in-class HSE performance throughout our operations and instil a generative HSE culture within our organisation. We do this by embedding our HSE Management System (HSE MS) in every aspect and at every level of our business to minimise disruptions and improve operational efficiency.

PCG’s HSE Strategy and Governance

Our HSE Strategy is anchored on three key pillars:
Culture, Compliance and Competency.

These are fundamental to achieving our “Strive for Zero, Zero is Possible” goal.

To ensure full regulatory and health and safety compliance, each of our operational sites* is governed by a HSE Committee that consists of management and employee representatives.

The Committees’ roles and responsibilities include:

Assisting in the development of safety and health rules, as well as a safe system of work.
Conducting studies and providing recommendations on trends pertaining to accidents, near-miss accidents, dangerous occurrences, occupational poisoning or occupational diseases, which occur at the place of work.
Reporting any unsafe or unhealthy conditions or practices at the workplace to the employer, and working together to develop recommendations for corrective actions.
Reviewing safety and health policies at the place of work, and making recommendations to the employer for any revisions.

* HSE at our international operations is governed by the respective country’s requirements.

Our HSE matters are also discussed on other platforms, including the PCG Board of Directors, Management Committee (MC), Sustainability and Risk Management Committee (SRMC), Manufacturing Leadership Team (MLT), and the PCG HSE network.

How We Provide Value

In line with our aspiration to build a generative HSE culture, we continued with more initiatives in 2023 to achieve HSE excellence.

Culture

Enhanced and sustained our FELT Leadership Engagement programmes via Leaders’ Reach Out (LRO), FELT Leadership Engagement, and Open Mic sessions, among others.
Fortified our Focused Learning programme, which involves sharing and discussion of lessons learnt from major incidents, with strong emphasis on compliance to procedure, to prevent incident recurrence.
Heightened our Process Safety Implementation and Culture by:
1. Implementing effective analysis and prevention on Process Safety First Line Assurance.
2. Institutionalising compliance on our “8 Golden Rules on Process Safety” (8GRPS), focusing on structured 8GRPS communication and the development of a Process Safety Field Guide that incorporates 8GRPS on Process Safety Observation.
Launched our PCG HSE Partnership Pledge programme for all our contractors and stakeholders to revitalise and strengthen commitments to HSE excellence from both sides, as well as improve accountability.
- The PCG HSE Partnership Pledge. Our Commitment:
  1. To uphold the “Strive for Zero, Zero Is Possible” programme.
  2. To set up the Safety Community of Practice
  3. To conduct our FELT Leadership Engagement programmes, facilitated by our top leaders.
  4. To establish the Grievance Management System.
Further strengthened contractor management via leadership engagement with employees and contractors to promote two-way discussions on expectations and issues, as well as encourage feedback.
Continued encouraging our leaders to promote MESTIfit4Health initiatives, MIND-A-CARE ambassador programmes for mental health, and Fatigue Remedy & Sleep Hygiene (FReSH) 2.0 to improve our employees’ overall well-being.

Compliance

Improved our turnaround HSE best practices throughout our operations in these key areas:
1. Contract Management
  - We introduced an abridged turnaround main contractors contract. We also revived contract ownership and revisited the penalty and reward scheme.
2. Screening
  - We introduced an abridged turnaround main contractors contract. We also revived contract ownership and revisited the penalty and reward scheme.
3. Surveillance
  - We introduced a dedicated surveillance team for each site, along with enhanced digital surveillance.
Strengthened our contractors’ HSE accountability levels with the following initiatives to circumvent potential violations and enhance safety management:
1. Conducted assessments for selected contractors on HSE management.
2. Embedded PETRONAS’ Contractor HSE Mentorship Programmes 2.0 across our Operating Units (OPUs).
3. Established relevant KPIs for identified contractors management and incorporated them under the contractors’ HSE plan.
Successfully piloted our Electronic Permit To Work 2.0 (ePTW+ 2.0) system at PC Methanol, which went live in December 2023. ePTW+ 2.0 serves as a single digital PTW platform that streamlines best practices through a single PTW workflow. Its benefits include:
1. Enhanced PTW management with real time analytics and reporting, leading to faster permit applications and approvals, as well as improvements on Safe System of Work site compliances.
2. Standardised certificates and hazards registered in alignment with the Hazards and Effects Management Process (HEMP).
3. Strengthened PTW compliance through a vetted list of signatories with required documentations.
Completed risk assessments for noise, chemical health and chemical exposure at our facilities.
Continued strengthening our Journey Management compliance through effective mitigation efforts that include:
1. Implementation of HSE digital tools to register all drivers, fleets and equipment, and enable in-vehicle monitoring systems for driving and journey compliance.
2. Continuous engagement with all hauliers on our FReSH 2.0 programme.
Heightened our compliance to Operating Procedure (OP) and Management of Change (MOC) to manage process hazards more effectively and prevent process safety incidents.
Introduced the following measures to heighten safety and address Tier-1 Process Safety Event (major loss of primary containment, or LOPC):
1. Included potential failure mechanisms in the following documents:
  - Equipment Reliability Strategy (ERS) for pressure vessels
  - Hazard & Effect Register (HER)
  - Critical Activity Catalogue (CAC)
2. Developed an internal guideline for torquing methods.
Strengthened our readiness for emergency response to worst case scenarios by:
1. Evaluating and reviewing the PETRONAS Technical Standards and Guidelines, e.g. specifications, recommended Inspection, Testing and Preventive Maintenance (ITPM).
2. Reviewing and updating our Emergency Response Plan (ERP) procedures and emergency manual.
3. Including Hazardous Material (HAZMAT) response in our existing response functional drill plan for every group after having completed the required training.

Competency

Continued implementing the Road Transport Operational Guideline modules, along with personnel upskilling and coaching for leadership management, vehicle management and journey management, to ensure effective and safe product deliveries.
Continued driving PETRONAS’ Group HSE Training Matrix to ensure HSE competencies for each target group are covered across our operations, as required by PETRONAS and regulators.

Hazard Identification

Applied the Hazards and Effects Management Process (HEMP) in reducing risk to As Low as Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) through identification and assessment of HSE hazards that are likely to exist throughout the life cycle of a project / facility.
Utilised tools such as Hazard Identification (HAZID), part of our Health, Safety, Security and Environment Integrated Risk Assessment (HIRA) platform which serves as a one stop centre for all tools that enable optimisation and standardisation of risk assessments.
Leveraged our Unsafe Act, Unsafe Condition (UAUC) online system, which enables our workers to raise any concerns about unsafe working conditions efficiently. The system is also capable of conducting predictive analysis and assisting HSE personnel in mitigating and preventing potential recurring HSE incidents.