Managing Director/Chief Executive Officer, 11 Plc, Adetunji Oyebanji, has called on stakeholders in the oil and gas industry to imbibe the culture of sustainable safety practices in the communities they operate.

Oyebanji gave the charge, yesterday, during the yearly safety, health and environmental programme, which saw the emergency response drill exercise performed by the safety department of the company.

Oyebanji said safety practices should be observed regularly around the terminals while citing the incidents that took place in NNPCL Retail Limited a few years ago and the huge fire at a terminal in Guinea, which has been described as the worst fire disaster in the country.

He said everyone rallied around to help bring the situation under control, noting that this is something that every stakeholder has to continue to focus on.

“If you are not safe you can’t do any other business, whether it is insecurity generally or whatever the case may be. We have to put safety as our number one priority. We do these exercises periodically because we have found that in many cases in third-world countries, the safety that people tend to adopt is religion, this is the safety mantra you find in third-world countries. Instead of doing what is necessary to prevent incidents, people just depend on blind faith, hope and what have you,” he stated.

Speaking on the emergency response drill exercise, Oyebanji advised that part of the process of managing safety is to do regular exercises like this.

He said these exercises help companies to prepare their people and minds for the fact that incidents can happen anytime and for them to know what measures to take to curtail the incidents.

“Another advantage of doing this exercise regularly is that it allows us to test our equipment. We have a pipeline that goes around this entire facility, we have fire engines, fire holding, if you do not test them periodically you may find that the day you need them, they will fail you. It is always good to continue to test those equipment and facilities to make sure they are working fine,” he stated.

Oyebanji further said the safety exercises help to build collaboration with the various stakeholders, which include the police, the community, other sister companies and associations, as well as the regulatory authorities who have the opportunity to access the state of preparedness and readiness of the terminals.