OREANDA-NEWS. November 06, 2013. Qatar Petroleum recently held the first QP Enterprise Risk Management (ERM) Forum to discuss common risk management practices, their practical applications as well as the lessons learned and the challenges faced in implementing a corporate-wide ERM program.

The forum, which was held at The Ritz-Carlton, Doha, was attended by over 100 ERM focal points representing QP’s various directorates and departments from all its operational areas. The event was a follow-up to the completion of QP’s first Corporate Enterprise Risk Management Report (CERMR), which was published in August 2013.

In his opening address, Mr. Issa Shahin Al-Ghanim, Director of QP’s Strategic Planning & Policy Directorate, stressed that risk management was something that the corporation has been engaged in for a long time now and he explained that the current ERM program primarily provides a structured framework to facilitate a proactive and systematic management of risks on a consistent basis.

Mr. Al-Ghanim pointed out that QP’s ERM program is under the directives of His Excellency Dr. Mohammed bin Saleh Al-Sada, Minister of Energy and Industry, and that it is based on ISO 31000:2009, the international standard that provides the principles and guidelines on risk management.

The one-day forum featured speakers from within QP as well as risk management experts from outside the corporation. Among these experts were Ms. Khaleda Ahmed Bander, ERM Team Leader of Kuwait National Petroleum Company, and Mr. Rahat Latif, Head of Enterprise Risk Management at Qatargas. The other speakers included those from consultants firms who spoke on the art of risk management as well as on risk identification.

The first QP ERM Forum provided all the participants with the opportunity to stimulate their thoughts about risk management and further widen their knowledge on what enterprise risk management is all about as well as to share experiences of major energy companies in the field. The event also enabled QP’s ERM focal points to review the year’s performance on risk management and to set the tone and way forward in continually building on risk management practices to effectively achieve continuous risk reduction in QP’s day-to-day operations.