The Role of Emotional Intelligence Factors in Workers’ Occupational Health and Safety Performance — A Case Study of the Petroleum Industry

Introduction: Despite improvements in occupational health and safety due to technological advancements and the adoption of management systems, accidents continue to occur in the oil and gas (O&G) industry. These accidents are often linked to human factors. The emotional intelligence (EI) of workers, however, has the potential to influence some of the human factors that predispose to accidents. Methods: In this study, we investigated how the EI factors of workers influence their health and safety performance in the work place. A total of 124 O&G industry workers completed a web-based questionnaire. Five and 14 key success factors of EI and effective occupational health and safety management systems were respectively identified through a systematic evaluation of the literature. Results: EI success factors of ‘being able to rule one’s own emotions to facilitate thinking’, ‘being able to deal with the emotions of others’ and ‘being able to discuss one’s own emotions accurately’ were found to have a relationship with health and safety performance of workers. Conclusion: The findings demonstrated that certain success factors of EI are vital for improving the health and safety performance of workers and that the development of these competencies should be part of the workers’ professional development. View Full-Tex

Human factors analysis and classification system for the oil and gas industry (HFACS-OGI)

The oil and gas industry has been beset with several catastrophic accidents, most of which have been attributed to organisational and operational human factor errors. The current HFACS developed for the aviation industry, cannot be used to simultaneously analyse regulatory deficiencies and emerging violation issues, such as sabotage in the oil and gas industry. This paper presents an attempt to improve the existing HFACS investigation tool and proposes a novel HFACS named the Human Factors Analysis and Classification System for the Oil and Gas Industry (HFACS-OGI). Results found the HFACS-OGI system to be suitable for categorising accidents, following the analysis of 11 accident reports from the US Chemical Safety Board (US CSB). The HFACS-OGI system moreover revealed some significant relationships between the different categories. Furthermore, the results indicated that failures in national and international industry regulatory standards would automatically create the preconditions for accidents to occur

Analysis of Penalties Imposed on Organisations for Breaching Safety and Health Regulations in the UK

Background: The study analyzes penalties imposed on organizations for breaching safety and health regulations. The research questions are as follows: what are the commonly breached safety and health regulations? How proportional are penalties imposed on organizations for breaching health and safety regulations in the United Kingdom? Methods: The study employed sequential explanatory mixed research strategies for better understanding of health and safety penalties imposed on organizations. Actual health and safety convictions and penalties data for 10 years (2006 to 2016) were obtained through the United Kingdom Health and Safety Executive (HSE) public register for convictions. Overall, 2,217 health and safety cases were analyzed amounting to total fines of £37,179,916, in addition to other wide-ranging penalties. For thorough understanding, eight interviews were conducted with industry practitioners, lawyers, and HSE officials as part of the study qualitative data. Results: Findings show that the Health and Safety at Work (HSW) Act accounted for 46% of all HSE prosecution cases in the last decade. This is nearly half of the total safety and health at work prosecutions. Moreover, there is widespread desire for organizations to comply with the HSW Act, but route fines are seen as burdensome and inimical to business growth. Conclusion: A key deduction from the study reveal significant disproportionality concerning penalties imposed on organizations for breaching safety and health regulations. On aggregate, small companies tend to pay more for health and safety offenses in a ratio of 1:2 compared to large companies. The study also reveals that the HSW Act accounted for nearly half of the total safety and health at work prosecutions in the last decade

Influence of operating parameters on the biodegradation of steroid estrogens and nonylphenolic compounds during biological wastewater treatment processes

This document is the unedited author's version of a Submitted Work that was subsequently accepted for publication in Environmental Science & Technology, copyright © American Chemical Society after peer review. To access the final edited and published work see http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10.1021/es901612v.This study investigated operational factors influencing the removal of steroid estrogens and nonylphenolic compounds in two sewage treatment works, one a nitrifying/denitrifying activated sludge plant and the other a nitrifying/denitrifying activated sludge plant with phosphorus removal. Removal efficiencies of >90% for steroid estrogens and for longer chain nonylphenol ethoxylates (NP4−12EO) were observed at both works, which had equal sludge ages of 13 days. However, the biological activity in terms of milligrams of estrogen removed per day per tonne of biomass was found to be 50−60% more efficient in the nitrifying/denitrifying activated sludge works compared to the works which additionally incorporated phosphorus removal. A temperature reduction of 6 °C had no impact on the removal of free estrogens, but removal of the conjugated estrone-3-sulfate was reduced by 20%. The apparent biomass sorption (LogKp) values were greater in the nitrifying/denitrifying works than those in the nitrifying/denitrifying works with phosphorus removal for both steroid estrogens and nonylphenolic compounds possibly indicating a different cell surface structure and therefore microbial population. The difference in biological activity (mg tonne−1 d−1) identified in this study, of up to seven times, suggests that there is the potential for enhancing the removal of estrogens and nonylphenols if more detailed knowledge of the factors responsible for these differences can be identified and maximized, thus potentially improving the quality of receiving waters.Public Utilities Board (Singapore), Anglian Water Ltd, Severn Trent Water Ltd, Thames Water Utilities Ltd, United Utilities 393 Plc and Yorkshire Water Services

The fate and behavior of selected endocrine disrupting chemicals in full scale wastewater and sludge treatment unit processes

Endocrine disrupting chemicals are discharged into the environment mainly through wastewater treatment processes. There is a need for better understanding of the fate of these compounds in the unit processes of treatment plant to optimize their removal. The fate of oestrone, 17β-estradiol, 17α-ethinyestradiol and nonylphenol in the unit processes of full scale wastewater treatment plants in the UK, including activated sludge plant, oxidation ditch, biofilter and rotating biological contractor were investigated. The overall removal efficiencies of all the compounds ranged from 41 % to 100 %. The removals were predominantly during the secondary biological treatment with the rates of removal related to the nitrification rates and the sludge age. The removal efficiency of the treatment processes were in the order activated sludge > oxidation ditch > biofilter > rotating biological contractors. Activated sludge plant configured for biological nutrient removal showed better removal of the endocrine disrupting chemicals compared to conventional activated sludge plant effluents. Tertiary treatment was also significant in the removal process through solids removal. Overall mechanisms of removal were biodegradation and sorption unto sludge biomass. Phytoremediation was also significant in the removal processes. The endocrine disrupting chemicals persisted in the anaerobic sludge digestion process with percentage removals ranging fro 10-48 %. Sorption of the endocrine disrupting chemicals onto the sludge increased with increasing values for the partitioning coefficients and the organic carbon contents of the sludge

The application of Bayesian – Layer of Protection Analysis method for risk assessment of critical subsea gas compression systems

Subsea gas compression system (SGCS) is a new critical subsea-to-shore field development solution that could reduce costs and environmental footprint. However, this system is not without inherent and operational risks. It is therefore, vital to evaluate the possible risks associated with SGCS to ensure the safe operation of the system. To this end, Layer of Protection Analysis (LOPA) is a suitable method for the estimation of possible risks. However, the failure rate data from SGCS required for LOPA is sparse and mostly developed from experimental testing. Bayesian (BL) logic is an effective tool that could be used to resolve this shortfall. In this paper, generic data from a secondary database was updated with SGCS specific data using BL logic to give a better risk frequency value. The key findings show that the posterior values derived from the BL-LOPA methodology are safer and more reliable to implement for an event scenario when compared to literature, expert judgement and generic data; therefore recommending an improved judgement in the application of safety instrumented systems for a required safety integrity level. The case studies used demonstrated that the BL-LOPA risk assessment method is sufficiently robust for quantifying uncertainties in new process facilities with sparse data