Mohamed Shindy, Methanex Egypt Managing Director and Eng. Abed Ezz El Regal, The Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC) CEO, signed a Memorandum of Understanding on Wednesday February 12, 2020, in the presence of H.E. Eng. Tarek El-Molla Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, enabling collaboration between Methanex Egypt and the Ministry of Petroleum to embed the culture of Process Safety Management (PSM) within the Egyptian oil, gas and petrochemicals sector, in alignment with the Ministry’s modernization program. The MoU creates an Egyptian PSM Steering Committee that will drive a robust agenda and roadmap aimed at institutionalizing PSM within the industry in accordance with the ministry’s modernization program and international best practices, guidelines and standards. This milestone agreement builds upon the industry-wide dialogue started by ECHEM and Methanex Egypt in 2018 and 2019 through the first Process Safety Management Workshop and Conference. The steering committee will be composed of leaders from the Ministry of Petroleum, EGPC, Egyptian Natural Gas Holding Company (EGAS), Egyptian Petrochemicals Holding Company (ECHEM) and Ganoub El Wadi Petroleum Holding Company (Ganope) in addition to Methanex. The signing took place on the sidelines of EGYPS 2020 Conference and was attended by ECHEM Chairman Saad Helal, EGAS Chairman Osama el-Bakly, and members of Egypt’s PSM Steering Committee.

Commenting on the signing, Mohamed Shindy said: “We started our PSM conference with our partner ECHEM two years ago with the aim of sharing and extending our PSM vision towards safer processes, assets and operations with other companies in the Egyptian Oil and Gas sector. Today, with this agreement, we take real steps towards creating an Egyptian PSM Steering Committee that will be able to drive PSM modernization to ensure the safety of people, environment and assets.”

PSM is a set of interrelated principles to managing the hazards associated with process industries and is designed to reduce the frequency and potential severity of process incidents that could result from the accidental release of hazardous fluids (oil, gases, chemicals) and other energy sources. These approaches are composed of design standards, engineering studies, equipment specification, organizational capability and operational procedures, audit programs, safety case development and a host of other methods aimed at preventing accidents that can cause serious harm to people and the environment.