A highly successful Health, Safety, and Environment campaign has just ended in the Neuquén Basin, featuring a series of creative meetings to present and teach the Eight Golden Rules. 

The Golden Rules safety education campaign has drawn to a close, after nine months on air. Under the slogan “Safe habits save lives,” the campaign was designed to reach all fields and locations in the Neuquén Basin, centered on the company’s facilities in Fortín de Piedra, Agua Salada, Los Bastos, Los Toldos I North and Los Toldos II East.

The campaign kicked off with the launch event in October. Then, each month, the top experts in the Basin developed the eight rules in detail: Energy Isolation, Lifting and Hoisting, Work at Height, Road Safety, Confined Spaces, Work Permits, Line of Fire and Change Management.

Why did it take a month to cover each issue? From Los Bastos, Mariana Lemes, Health, Safety & Environment specialist, explains the concept. “Teaching people the Eight Golden Rules in a single day provides them with an introduction to the subject, but when you dive deep into the subject over the course of a month, and then move on to talk about the next topic the following month, the message gets through in a very different way. In November we covered Energy Isolation, in December, Hoisting and Lifting, and so we went on, rule by rule, month by month, forty minutes on each course, one day at each site.” This was also something that kept participation rates high.

The audience involved was a very broad one, including employees and contractors, with over 1,200 participants and 72 companies taking part. Rossmery Maturana, Health and Safety Manager, comments that, "the idea was to create a space for exchange, to encourage people to come together and foster a shared sense of permanence about our safety culture. And of course, they know that Tecpetrol is constantly developing strategies to improve performance."

The open nature of the courses was key to their success. Rossmery continues: “That’s why we ensured it applied to everyone. Each activity toured every location, area and site to make it as easy as possible for participants to attend. We replicated the message in Drilling, Completion, Operations, Facilities and Maintenance, so that everyone could be part of it.”

Another crucial aspect was the creative format of the courses. Rossmery and Mariana discuss their approach to finding the right formula. “We’re always on the look-out for activities that are out-of-the-box. This system is more dynamic. We wanted this campaign to function as a differentiated complement to formal training, which never stopped. So, we brought in special equipment, a height simulator, a safety truck, a confined space simulator, and carried out role-playing activities, made videos, organized group dynamics, and built a storyline. The purpose of all of this was to rekindle people’s interest in safety.”

Belén Marquina, the Health and Safety Analyst who organized the campaign, is now much calmer after all the intense activity: “Now that it's over, it feels like a job well done. As the months went by, we increasingly felt that this wasn’t just any activity, it was the Golden Rules campaign, something everybody could pinpoint and recognize, which made it easier in the end to carry out the activities. We put in a lot of work, hours and travel to achieve this goal. Part of this is remembering never to let our guard down, as the path taken toward a strong safety culture is a permanent one and always requires effort and setting examples.”

Rossmery closes with, “We’re very happy, we’ve had some excellent feedback, and the participation level was extremely high. We’re firmly convinced that training is an essential base for accident prevention and we plan to continue along that line.”