Methanex in Egypt, in partnership with the Egyptian Petrochemicals Holding Company (ECHEM), held its second Annual Process Safety Management (PSM) Conference titled “Modernizing Process Safety Management: Sharing the Vision” on Monday September 9, 2019.  The conference was attended by ECHEM Chairman Saad Helal, Methanex Corporation’s Senior Vice President for Corporate Resources Brad Boyd and Methanex Egypt CEO and Managing Director Mohamed Shindy in addition to more than 400 of the petrochemicals and downstream sectors’ leaders and top executives. The conference comes as part of Methanex’s commitment to continuing and maintaining dialogue around process safety within Egypt’s petrochemicals sector.

In the opening remarks, on behalf of the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Chemist Mr. Saad Helal said, “I am pleased to continue the dialogue we started last year around the important topic of Process Safety Management. This fits well with the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources’ vision to modernize the country’s oil, gas, and petrochemicals sector, and particularly the focus of H.E Eng. Tarek El Molla, Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, on safety as a key priority.”

Commenting on the conference, Shindy said, “This comes as a reflection of our commitment to sharing our own vision towards safer processes, assets and operations. Methanex Egypt and many petrochemicals companies are already on a journey to adopt and embed PSM within our systems.” Adding, “Process safety will only be achieved in our sector when we work together as industry leaders through standardizing sharing experiences and lessons learnt and starting rich discussions and initiatives that help create a solid PSM commitment and culture within our sector companies.”

The conference keynote speakers included Ken Rivers, President of the Institution of Chemical Engineers and Chairman of UK’s Control of Major Hazards (COMAH) Strategic Forum, Michael Broadribb, Senior Principal Consultant in BakerRisk’s Process Safety Group, Brad Boyd, Methanex SVP, Corporate Resources and Jason Clement, the Director of Process Safety Management at Methanex Corporation.

In the first session, Ken Rivers highlighted the importance of the roles of leaders in driving PSM while Michael Broadribb discussed the importance of learning from previous incidents. Afterwards, Brad Boyd briefly shared Methanex experience in building organizational capability around PSM, and Jason Clement showcased Methanex’s PSM journey and its evolution as a learning organization.

In its first round in 2018, the event included key international speakers and was attended by over 200 leaders and executives of the petrochemicals and downstream oil & gas industry in Egypt. Methanex team has continued to work with ECHEM to keep the momentum going through regular discussions and meetings around the topic and committing to organizing this PSM conference annually to empower other sector leaders and executives with the needed PSM knowledge.