Practitioners’ perspectives on health and safety risk management in the Ghanaian oil and gas industry

Abstract

Risk management has been regarded as one way to improve workplace health and safety conditions. However, very little research has been published on the perspectives of practitioners on safety risk management in general and the Ghanaian oil and gas industry in particular. This study bridges this literary gap by presenting findings from an online survey that investigated the perspectives of practitioners on safety risk management processes of the Ghanaian oil and gas industry. The results of 219 respondents indicated that a disparity existed between the risk methods the practitioners were required to use by their companies and the risk management methods the practitioners preferred to use, and this was verified through statistical testing. Whereas the practitioners were required by their organisations to use quantitative methods, they preferred to use qualitative methods, indicating a difference between work as planned/imagined and work as done. It was further observed that risk management tools/techniques were mostly used proactively, with a limited reactive application during accident investigations. This suggests the limited/lack of integration of risk management into accident investigation processes. Furthermore, feedback from the respondents indicated the narrow use of bowtie analysis in the Ghanaian mining industry as over 60 % of the practitioners had received no training and could not use bowtie analysis. The practitioners’ responses generally showed that whereas current risk management processes in the Ghanaian oil and gas industry had some strengths, some weaknesses exist which offer improvement opportunities. These have been discussed throughout the paper.