Page 14 - CCPS Monograph - Refletions of Global Process Safety Leaders

Elena Blardony – Incident Advisor, Repsol:

Repsol is an international oil & gas company based in Spain. Most of our assets and activities are
considered critical infrastructure and have maintained activity, especially refineries.

Process Safety Culture:

Process safety culture is an element which we consider as critical in the management of the current
crisis. It is a time for leaders to show leadership, communication, care for people, resilience and to
take action. We have created a committee for the crisis. We have a meeting every two days,
reporting to the committee, and they issue guidelines for the different businesses making
numerous decisions for the continuity of operation, epidemiological data, and communication to
employees. The business continuity plans and their impacts are deferred to the business units as
they have the expertise. For example, in upstream, they have defined maximum effectiveness
scenarios, they prioritize activities and take actions. They have defined “high probability of
contagion” as one of the scenarios affecting personnel who cover production activities. So, some
issues that they have defined include key personnel and back up crews, and they are ready for full
field shutdown in case those personnel get affected by the virus. We are maintaining quarantine
and social distancing protocols, so they keep safe and minimize the probability of contagion. Then
they evaluated activities such as construction projects, turnaround shut downs, and non‐critical
maintenance. One other area of focus is to minimize SIMOPS (simultaneous operations). For drilling
and other critical process systems, they are focusing on guarantee of supplies.

In downstream, because of the sharp drop in demand for oil and gas, they are now focused on
having maximum storage to meet the obligation if process is shut down with risk management

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