Ensuring operational integrity
Xstrata has developed a company-wide, leading asset management and operational integrity programme, which is a core element of our integrated approach to safety management. Our asset protection audit programme is an important part of this. Involving specialist audits of our assets around the globe, these audits test aspects such as fire and electrical safety and the integrity of fixed plant, equipments and structures. Sites and issues to be audited are selected for each year’s audit programme on a risk basis. We also review the investigations into major catastrophes such as the Deepwater Horizon incident in the Gulf of Mexico in 2010 to ensure we manage operational integrity, including the organisational culture aspects of it, to world-class standards.
All sites are required to develop and implement operational integrity management systems that are audited and reviewed for effectiveness on a regular basis and that are in line with specific requirements for operational integrity set out in Xstrata’s SD Standards. From a safety perspective, our sites pay particular attention to those processes, structures and pieces of equipment where operational failure could lead to serious injury or fatality, such as cage winches, longwall operations and pressurised vessels.
In 2010, we integrated our SD risk audit process into our Group-wide internal audit programme. Specific SD risks are audited as an integral part of the internal audits of our operations. In many instances, operational integrity is amongst the selected risks reviewed, and Group Internal Audit’s teams are supplemented with specialist auditors with expertise in assessing the specific risk.