Some Steps to Process Safety Excellence in Oil and Gas Process safety management (PSM) is a key concern for companies operating in the oil and gas industry, with new strategies and ways of dealing with challenges offering potential rewards in many areas. As well as posing an immediate human and environmental risk, safety incidents can have wider repercussions relating to finance, brand reputation, regulations and the sector as a whole. These are some steps companies can take to improve their safety management and minimise risk: * Always Be Looking Forward A common PSM approach is for companies to log the amount of time since their last incident. However, this may not be the most effective way of preventing an unwanted occurrence in future. According to the Energy Institute (EI), most well-run organisations can state how many accidents occurred over a certain period in the past, but the "real challenge" is to assess the likelihood of an incident happening tomorrow. * Manage Data with Care Major companies operating in the oil and gas and petrochemicals sectors have large teams of staff interacting with one another and different organisations. This means substantial amounts of data, reams of documents and thousands of pieces of information, which must be managed carefully. An overlooked detail or undetected error could have serious ramifications. * Remember Two Key Questions According to the EI, there are two key questions organisations must always consider when trying to improve PSM: How will we assure the integrity of the operation? How will we know we are doing it? The institute warned that starting to answer these questions with the words 'I think' is a telltale sign of uncertainty. To help in this area, the EI offers two resources - a PSM framework covering good industry practice and a survey that allows companies to assess their safety arrangements and performance against the sector as a whole.