OREANDA-NEWS. February 18, 2010. A meeting of the Permanent Commission for occupational safety was held at OAO TATNEFT. The meeting discussed the results of operation for 2009 and key activities for the protection of labor, industrial and fire safety, as well as prevention of occupational injuries and accidents in 2010. The keynote report was presented by N. G. Ibragimov, Deputy General Director for Production - Chief Engineer of OAO TATNEFT, reported the press-centre of TATNEFT.

In 2009, restructuring of the Company and the oil service entities continued. A new scheme of relations between the structural subdivisions of OAO TATNEFT and service businesses was establishing and improving. In these conditions the management system of industrial and occupational safety should become a part of the unified well functioning production safety system of OAO TATNEFT.

The targeted and efficient operation of production control services in recent years resulted in reducing violations of the industrial safety requirements in hazardous occupations. A range of activities was implemented to improve conditions and labor safety at the facilities and workplaces in the structural subdivisions and service enterprises. The Company continued renewal of the drilling rigs and the well workover units stock. The workover and drilling crews were equipped with video surveillance systems.

About 6 thousand line vehicles were equipped with systems of satellite transportation monitoring and about 500 workstations for professionals of the motor transport companies were established. It makes possible to effectively monitor the work of transport and qualitatively perform analysis of the road safety.

Application of metal/plastic pipes and pipes with polymer coating, as well as application of the inhibitor and galvanic protection allowed a 16% reduction in the oil gathering system failure rate. Implementation of an extensive environmental safety program continued. Cathodic protection was arranged at almost 1.2 thousand wells; more than 520 km of anticorrosive performance pipes as well as more than 5.8 thousand tons of corrosion inhibitors were produced. The work on removal of corrosive liquid and release of more than 300 km of inactive pipelines was performed. Methods of nondestructive testing were applied to verify the state of 2.2 thousand km of pipelines.

Detailed expertise of industrial safety and technical diagnosis of about 4 thousand sucker rod pumping units, almost 10 thousand wellhead equipment sets, more than 950 vessels operating under pressure, about 400 lifting mechanisms, 120 well workover units and 40 drilling rigs were performed.

To ensure healthy working conditions the Industrial and Sanitary Laboratory performed about 19 thousand studies of chemical and physical hazards in the work sites at the facilities of TATNEFT. The persistent work in this area resulted in reducing the levels of noise and dust.

The integrated industrial, occupational and environmental safety management system of OAO Tatneft successfully passed recertification audit in September 2009 and the Company obtained new certificates of conformity to international standards. For the purpose of meeting the requirements of the ONSAS 18001 international standard the Company successfully implemented the “Program of OAO TATNEFT for industrial safety and labor protection to prevent injuries, reduce the risk of accidents and extraordinary losses for 2007-2009”. The Company also developed and approved another program for the period 2010-2012.