Safety Governance

Qatar Steel has a robust safety governance structure that links top management to shop floor in a structured manner, with clear reporting lines and mechanisms. The purpose of the governance structure is to drive messages, concerns and progress from the bottom-up, and cascade decisions top-down while ensuring an effective process. The governance system is equipped with a set of leading and lagging KPI’s and dashboards to measure and monitor safety performance in an effective, structured and sustainable manner to drive decision making.

Process Safety Management (PSM) is the proactive application of management principles to a process for the prevention of loss of primary containment events of highly hazardous materials. PSM is a system for dealing with human performance in complicated systems that involve inherent risk. Process Safety involves the prevention of leaks, equipment malfunctions, over pressure, corrosion, metal fatigue, etc.

PSM Competency

In order to establish a process finalized at spreading safety-related knowledge and expertise, several trainings on PSM elements were conducted. The details are as follows:

• In-House sessions:
1. Process Safety Management Awareness: Total 118 Qatar Steel Employees received full day PSM awareness session.
2. Process Hazard Analysis Review: Total 64 Qatar Steel Employees received full day PHA review session.
• Externally provided sessions: A program defined “Process Safety Competency Program” has been rolled out, and a total of 19 Qatar Steel Employees who are members of PSM Functional Committee
  have successfully completed the Developing Level of Introduction to Process Safety Management (48 PDH) jointly conducted by Mary Kay O’Connor Process Safety Center and Texas A&M University
  in Qatar.

PSM KPI

Develop appropriate metrics for each selected PSM element. QS identified the Number of process safety events as the main PSM KPI. In year 2021 Zero Tier 1 and Tier 2 process safety events were recorded, achieving therefore the target set at 0 Tier 1 and Tier 2 process safety events.

Monitoring

Maintain standards of performance with respect to timely reporting of performance statistics: Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 Process Safety Events are monitored.

Review

Ensure Consistent Implementation of PSM Program via Internal and External Audits and Maintain a Dependable
Practice

Process Safety Roadmap

Qatar Steel completed the initial stage of implementing Process Safety Management System after voluntarily adopting the OSHA PSM Guidelines (29 CFR 1910.119). Qatar Steel has joined the Process Safety Management task team of the World Steel Association to network, benchmark, and align with industry best practices.

Regular assessments were conducted throughout the year to monitor progress and compliance. Training interventions were also conducted and are planned for the immediate future to ensure competence amongst all stakeholders.

The major achievements for the PSM program in 2021 are as follows:

• An external assessment by the subject matter experts from QE MIC was conducted for the DR-1 Plant. The assessment has suggested some improvement opportunities along with identification of strengths,
• A total of ten (10) Process Safety Management (PSM) awareness sessions have already been completed according to the training plan
• New training on Process Hazard Analysis (PHA) was launched. Four (4) PHA review training sessions have already been completed to prepare PSM committee members as competent PHA review participants,
• Process Safety Critical Equipment (SCE) register for different operational plants has been developed.
• Training on key risks have been conducted, and in particular, in 2021, Qatar Steel’s safety department began the provision of comprehensive Working at Heights program in a newly developed training platform.
• A gap analysis was conducted in Q1 of 2020 and action items related to finding have been closed. The analysis showed 82% compliance with OSHA 14 elements PSM program. All recommendations were closed.
• Organized external PSM assessment by Qatar Gas Subject Matter Expert in Q4 of 2020 and by QP-MIC PSM working group in January 2021, which provided recommendations on process safety culture improvement and on individual Qatar Steel PSM elements respectively.
• The PSM roadmap has been established considering the major recommendation(s) coming out from the PSM external assessment. Actions have been identified based on the nature, efforts required and priority to ensure effective implementation.
• Common understanding about process safety of Qatar Steel staff will be evaluated in the future by conducting an opinion survey and an online PSM training module will be developed for all employees.
• After having organized an external PSM assessment by Qatar Gas Subject Matter Expert in Q4 of 2020, a second external PSM assessment was conducted by QE-MIC PSM working group in January 2021. These provided recommendations on process safety culture improvement and on individual Qatar Steel PSM elements respectively.
• The PSM roadmap has been established considering the major recommendation(s) coming out from the PSM external assessments. Actions have been identified based on the nature, efforts required and priority to ensure effective implementation. The PSM elements which were prioritized are: PHA Review, Training, and Asset Integrity Management.