Honoured for reduction in dropped objects

The chief executive’s 2006 prize for health, safety and the environment has been won by Johan Kolstø and a team devoted to identifying and reducing the threat of dropped objects offshore.

Johan Kolstø received the 10th chief executive's HSE prize for work with cranes, lifts and dropped objects offshore. Statoil’s executive vice president for HSE presented the prize on behalf of Helge Lund.

“This is great,” says Mr Kalstø. “We were taken by surprise, because there were a lot of worthy candidates for the award.

“We’ve pursued these efforts for many years, and winning the HSE prize means a lot to us. It’ll now be easier to gain acceptance in other places, such as land-based plants.

“Our focus is on the whole value chain – secured equipment, safe work processes and safe behaviour.”

He accepted the award on behalf of the winning team at a ceremony in Statoil’s guest villa outside Stavanger on 18 December.

A staff engineer in well technology with Technology & Projects, Mr Kolstø has headed the zero dropped objects team since the late 1990s.

The group has worked systematically to achieve improvements in this area, and established dropped object inspection teams in 2003-04.

In addition, they created a visualised dropped object inspection system covering all areas of drilling and well operations on fixed and mobile installations.

A manual on best practice has also been created with the title Securing Securely.

The jury’s assessment notes: “Dropped objects represent one of the major threats of serious personal injury to employees. The candidate has played a key role in work on combating such incidents over many years, and has adopted new solutions.

“These efforts have yielded demonstrable results. Statoil’s commitment has led to industry initiatives in this area.”

The prize was presented this year on behalf of chief executive Helge Lund by Nina Udnes Tronstad, Statoil’s executive vice president for HSE.

Mr Lund has made it clear that he greatly appreciates the commitment made by this year’s winner of the award.

“We have been a front runner for many years in the fight against such incidents, and have seen a dramatic improvement in this area,” he says.

“The contribution of the zero dropped objects team represents a new concept in this battle, which deserves our attention and recognition.”

Mr Lund notes that the prize – awarded for the 10th time this year – has established itself as very prestigious. It attracts great attention and has boosted in-house awareness of HSE work.

He adds that both the winner and the other finalists have every reason to be proud of what they have achieved.

A total of 93 candidates from all parts of the group were nominated for this year’s prize.