At VTTI, safety is not just a priority – it is at the heart of everything that we do. We want everyone – employees, contractors and the public – to go home safe and well at the end of each day. Care is one of our core values, driving us to implement safe practices and provide the right tools and equipment through our Living Safety programme. When our team feels safe, then they can thrive.
We believe in Zero.
Because safety is at the heart of our values, we continually strive to embed safety practices throughout our business. We keep ourselves safe and we keep our colleagues safe.
This mindset goes to the heart of our safety culture at VTTI. As a company, in line with our values of Care and Connection, we work hard to encourage best practice behaviours and maintain a working environment where anyone can ask questions and speak up about concerns, accidents and near misses.
Built on the Life Saving Rules (see below), our Living Safety programme is a multi-year initiative to empower our people by making the tools and processes they use as safe as possible.
As part of this, a team of management and operators carry out frequent Safety Observation Rounds at our terminals and sites. Colleagues can schedule a Safety Observation Round at their convenience, allowing them to receive safety advice on various aspects of their role from a highly trained team. We act promptly to address the findings from these exercises.
The Living Safety Programme also includes our ‘Broken Window’ approach, which emphasises the need to avoid complacency around seemingly trivial concerns in the workplace, like a broken window. We are taking steps to raise safety awareness among our people about the importance of all maintenance tasks, big and small.
A monthly toolbox talk with the entire team at our terminal in Malaysia.
The Life-Saving Rules (LSRs) were developed by the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP) and have been widely adopted across the oil and gas industry, including at VTTI. Everyone must follow the LSRs to protect themselves and others around them.
The LSRs are:
1. Work with a valid work permit
2. Verify isolation before work begins
3. Protect yourself from a fall when working at height
4. Obtain authorisation before entering a confined space
5. Do not walk under a suspended load
6. Position yourself in a safe zone in relation to moving and energised vehicles or equipment
7. Wear a personal flotation device when required
8. No alcohol or drugs allowed at any time
9. Wear your seat belt
10. Obtain authorisation before starting excavation activities
11. Do not smoke outside designated smoking areas
12. Follow the prescribed lift plan
We build relationships with the communities around our terminals. In some locations, particularly in western Europe, our terminals are situated among port infrastructure, so the surrounding community interacts with us more indirectly. In these cases, we engage with local communities through national environmental authorities, occupational health regulators and water management bodies.
In other locations, we are mindful of our impact on the residential areas directly neighbouring our facilities. We build relationships with community officials and communicate transparently about terminal activities.
Our approach to safety communication is refined through our rigorous, regular safety drills, which involve both a physical element and a communications element. In the physical element, we train our colleagues in correct emergency procedures.
We know that communities will also be looking for reassurance during an incident, so we include an additional communications drill to prepare for community engagement in these situations. These drills ensure that VTTI delivers the facts and issues safety advice to communities quickly and accurately.
