COS Announces Winners of the 2020 Safety Leadership Awards

December 2, 2020

The Center for Offshore Safety (COS) awarded its highest honor – the 2020 Safety Leadership Awards – to Shell Offshore Inc. and Baker Hughes, at the 2020 COS Safety Forum. The awards recognize companies for their outstanding leadership in developing safety management and performance practices and projects that advance the offshore industry’s culture of safety.

“This year’s winners have distinguished themselves as leaders in strengthening our shared value to prioritize safety in the offshore industry,” COS Director Russell Holmes said. “Since the establishment of COS in 2011, our members have expanded programs and commitments for sharing information and improving the collective knowledge of the industry. The COS Safety Awards highlight these accomplishments and support the industry’s commitment to continuously improve safety practices to reach our shared goal of zero incidents.”

The Safety Leadership Awards encourage and reward outstanding contributions by U.S. offshore industry participants to improve safety management and performance through leadership, communication, and teamwork. All nominations are reviewed, and finalists are selected in the operator and contractor categories by the COS Governing Board. This year’s finalists include Baker Hughes (two nominations) and Danos in the contractor category and BP Exploration and Production, Inc., Helis Oil and Gas Co. and Shell Offshore Inc. in the operator category. The safety award finalists are showcased each fall during the annual COS Forum as Spotlights on Excellence to feature its members’ successful new projects and programs. Winners are determined by vote during the Forum by the Board and attendees. Winners are determined by vote during the Forum by the Board and attendees.

The 2020 award winners have been important stakeholders on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS) for decades, and their contributions are integral to the advancement of offshore safety.

The two 2020 Safety Leadership Awards winners are:

• Baker Hughes: Operationalizing Human Performance -- Advancing Safety in the Shadow of Success.Human Performance concepts are based on the belief that humans inevitably make mistakes and that we must identify potential error traps to prevent incidents from happening. The Baker Hughes offshore team within its Oilfield Services product company in North America achieved 22% reduction in incident severity potential and 37% reduction in incidents by leveraging human performance concepts, including hosting 50 “Learning Teams” since 2019.
• Shell Offshore, Inc.: A Holistic Approach to Managing Lifeboat Safety.In the Gulf of Mexico OCS, lifeboat launching and recovery on offshore facilities is a regulatory expectation enforced by the United States Coast Guard (USCG). Historically, to be compliant protocol consisted of loading the lifeboat with limited personnel, lowering and releasing it into the water, running the boat, and recovery of the lifeboat. After re-assessing safety risks with performing these type of manned launches, Shell Offshore Inc. began advocating that changes to these procedures were prudent.