Health, Safety & Environment

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Health, Safety & Environment

Health

Safeguarding and maintaining occupational health in the workplace is an important prerequisite for motivated and productive working processes, both for employers and employees. Petrogulf has been certified for ISO 45001 standard for occupational health & safety management standards. By following a systematic standard for your occupational health & safety protection according to ISO 45001, sources of potential risks to health can be identified and eliminated or minimized. By means of certification of your occupational protection management you will thus significantly reduce the number of occupational accidents, and simultaneously fulfil legal and official requirements. Therefore not only increases the confidence of our employees, but also reinforces our reputation with clients, business partners and the authorities. This creates a valuable competitive business & people advantage. Our experts have many years of experience with management systems and in the field of effective and sustainable occupational health & safety protection. We regularly check and follow processes according to ISO 45001.

Safety

Across all industries, people safety is the most important consideration in getting work accomplished. Regardless of how urgent maintenance or a repair might be, it must be completed in a safe manner. While many people do not think of the safety ramifications of lubrication, they certainly exist.

Routine lubrication such as top-ups and greasing normally occur around moving equipment. When you are in close proximity to machines that rotate or move, you must exercise caution to avoid getting yourself or a tool caught in the nip points. You could easily be hurt by coming into contact with a fast-rotating shaft or having a finger trapped between two meshing surfaces.

Most equipment will have guards in place to ensure people stay out of these potentially dangerous areas. If you must remove a guard to lubricate a piece of machinery, ensure the machine is powered off and locked out to prevent anyone from turning it on accidentally.

As you walk around equipment, you may notice an occasional oil leak on the floor. These types of leaks should be cleaned up and repaired as quickly as possible. Not only are they costly in terms of make-up fluid and contaminant ingress, but they also pose a danger for slips, trips and falls. Stage spill-containment equipment and material throughout your plant so it will be easily accessible. All staff should also be trained on how to use these materials and on the company’s policy for disposing of lubricant waste.

Normal oil sample extraction is performed with dedicated sample valves. The valve is a safety device to help reduce the risks associated with collecting a sample from a pressurized system. In equipment such as hydraulics where the fluid pressure can be very high, it is best to use a pressure-reducing sample valve. This will lower the pressure of the oil stream so it will be safer and easier to capture in a sample bottle.

There are also risks related to greases at high pressures. A manual grease gun can produce a pressure of up to 15,000 pounds per square inch. When grease lines and fittings become caked with dried grease, this pressure looks for any chance to escape. In some cases, the connection between the fitting and the grease gun coupler is the easiest place for the grease to go. With this in mind, never hold the grease gun coupler in your hand during regreasing, as it could result in an injection wound or grease being pushed through the skin.

Lubrication is a hands-on job, so the last safety tip involves lubricants coming into contact with skin. You must minimize this contact by using gloves or barrier creams and washing off lubricants with soap and water. Although there isn’t a great risk of contact with lubricants, certain synthetics and additives present some health concerns. Lube safety is largely common sense, but always check the lubricant’s safety data sheets to determine how it should be handled.

As a responsible corporation we follow stringent safety policies on…

Accident and incident recording, reporting and investigation
Fire risk assessment
Generic risk assessment
Health and safety compliance audit
Development of site safety plan
Development of Emergency Procedures
Policy and procedure creation and compliance audit
Support in achieving ISO 9001, ISO14001 and ISO45001
HAZOP studies

Environment

Green Earth – Making Good Environmental Choices for Lubricants

Lubricant Manufacturers must adhere to & continually improve their own manufacturing processes toward green-friendly processes. This means they have to undergo procedures to reduce the consumption of resources such as water and energy sources. It means that they practice sound environmental disposal practices to reduce the amount of effluent—and the impact of their effluent on the environment. It also means they provide stewardship to their communities and education to help consumers make decisions cognizant of the environmental impact of their product selection, use, handling, and disposal.

Automotive Lubricants

To reduce impact of Automotive lubricants on the environment, emphasis is to be placed on the used lubricants disposal, since they may contain materials that are harmful to life or the environment or both. Lubricant conservation and the used oil reclamation, reprocessing, and disposal are critical and so are environmental compatibility and toxicity of the lubricants. Concern for the entry of used lubricant into the environment is on the rise, there are three main avenues to restrain the ever-increasing use of lubricants. These are to develop equipment, wherever and whenever possible, that requires minimum lubrication, extend service intervals, and when possible recycle the used lubricant.

In order to attain the extended service interval, one must use lubricants with extended useful life. Recycling is the option to minimize the used lubricants entry into the environment. This translates into cost savings, with respect to buying a batch of a new lubricant as well as in disposal costs, and the potential damage to the environment, if the disposal method is inappropriate. Ways to minimize inadvertent entry of the lubricant into the environment is to use a closed system, where appropriate. A prime example is the modern automobile, where the automobile manufacturers have successfully minimized the loss of the lubricant or its volatile components into the environment through leakage and evaporation. They have achieved this by building closely fitting parts and recycling the volatiles into the engine by installing closed ventilation systems. Many industrial users of lubricants employ such self-contained systems to prevent the unintended lubricant loss into the environment.

Industrial Lubricants

For an industrial lubricant to be most effective, a number of correct decisions must be made throughout its service life. A longer oil lifecycle not only contributes to less liquid waste, but there are other benefits as well: cost savings because labor can be used more effectively elsewhere, and fewer shutdowns for oil changes. These added costs can amount to at least five times the price of the oil alone. In addition, not having to drain the old oil, move it for disposal and bring in new oil also means less chance of spills. Spillage can often occur when a pail is knocked over or a drain valve breaks off.

Equipment Design. Request technical assistance to ensure that the equipment selection has been optimized for environmental and tribological considerations.
Selection of lubricants. Selecting the proper lubricant is important to sharply reduce long-term costs. The best-fit product selection can mean longer lubricant life, reduced machine wear, reduced incipient power losses and improved safety. Suitable basestocks and additives reduce environmental impact.
Maintenance. Consider specialty maintenance items to reduce liquid waste and improve sampling procedures. Review condition monitoring testing, particularly the results and successes. Periodically perform a lubricant survey. Set up guidelines for conducting a proper failure analysis, including lubrication failure modes and effects analysis.
Condition Monitoring. Lubricant condition monitoring (oil analysis), is critical for safe lifecycle extension. Quick on-site tests can usually determine if the oil requires treatment or if the machine is in distress. Proactive oil testing prevents damage. In contrast, most other testing/monitoring methods require some damage to have already occurred.
In-situ Treatment. A lubricant can often be effectively treated while still in the equipment, and in many cases can remain on-line. Caution should be exercised to prevent inadvertent contamination of the sumps from oil previously treated with the filtration equipment, if required drain housings and hoses have separate ones for turbine oils or phosphate esters.
Reuse or Disposal. Cost-effective alternatives to disposal are offered because the fluid can often be used in less-demanding applications either on-site or in other industries. For example, mineral oil could made into a cutting fluid or recycled.
Training. Correct actions require decision makers to be fully aware of their actions, non-actions and alternatives. Products, equipment and rules change quickly and necessitate periodic updates. Consider asking suppliers to give presentations or arrange for industry experts to provide specific training. Ongoing, two-way communication is a must.
Persistence. Last but not least, it is important to show that efforts have been made to reduce the environmental impact of operation and/or spills. While this might not prevent charges from being levied if there are spills, it can reduce the likelihood of problems and/or reduce the environmental consequences.