Over 50 of the most senior managers of companies operating in the North Sea offshore oil and gas industry were yesterday reminded that leadership is the key to securing offshore safety.

At an international summit organised by the North Sea Offshore Authorities Forum (NSOAF) regulators and industry discussed health and safety challenges facing the offshore industry and the essential role leadership plays in tackling them.

Other issues raised included asset integrity, competence and capacity, new technology and organisational development.

Speaking at the summit, Ian Whewell, Head of HSE's Offshore Division said: "The key to embedding a successful safety culture is strong and active leadership from the top. Those who create risks are best placed to manage them. I am encouraged by the level of commitment being shown by those here today, but we should not underestimate the size of the task ahead for the sector nor the range of challenges to safety the industry faces"

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Magne Ognedal, Director General Petroleum Safety Authority, Norway,said: "The hard learned lessons from catastrophic incidents like the Alexander Kielland capsizing and Piper Alpha explosion and fire seem to be getting forgotten by the industry. This must be addressed because improvements in the issues of process safety being discussed today are badly needed.

"It is the responsibility of industry supported by the regulator to do so and a key step towards achieving this is for the lessons to be known and understood inside a company, between companies, inside regulators and between regulators."

Speaking at the conference Jan De Jong, Inspector General of Dutch State Supervision of Mines focusing on asset integrity and the lessons the offshore industry can learn from BP's Texas refinery explosion in 2005, said: "To improve process safety the offshore

industry needs to apply the same attention to major hazards offshore that was present immediately after the Piper Alpha disaster. Industry leaders have a responsibility to ensure that their organisations keep them to the forefront of their mind when they make decisions relating to process safety."

(GK/JM)