STOW Achievements

The achievements of the Safe TO Work (STOW) programme over the last financial year were the most significant since the Energy Chamber began implementation in April 2006.  Among the successes over 2010-2011 were the certification of 19 contracting companies and 1 major operating company; 5 additional oil and gas operating companies signing the STOW Charter; and formal agreement from most of the signatories of the Charter on a timeline for mandatory STOW certification of their contractors. 

The move to make STOW certification mandatory for prequalification of contractors in the energy sector, started in the Energy Chamber’s 2009-2010 financial year and continued in 2010-2011. We continued lobbying oil and gas operating companies and got 5 more companies to publically sign the STOW Charter on 8th February 2011, at the Gala Dinner of the Energy Chamber’s annual premier event, the Energy Conference. A total of 22 oil and gas companies have now signed the STOW Charter and have agreed to make STOW a mandatory requirement for their contractors.

Working behind the scenes, the STOW Implementation Board established a timeline for the certification of all contractors in the energy sector.  Most of the signatories to the Charter have agreed and communicated to their contractors, the first deadline of 31st December 2011 to achieve 75% conformance to the STOW HSE requirements. A few signatories are still working out the details of integrating STOW into their prequalification process and have not yet communicated the first deadline to their contractors.  The STOW Implementation Board is currently working on a strategy to get these signatories fully on board.

The biggest success over the past financial year, however, was the certification of 20 companies, including Atlantic, an operating company. N & M Wood Group became the first company in Trinidad & Tobago to achieve certification under the STOW programme. The company achieved certification at the high risk level on 26th July 2010. 
Following closely behind was Harsco Infrastructure West Indies Limited, then Tucker Energy Services.  Both companies were certified in October 2010.

What really made other contractors take action to become STOW certified though, was Industrial Plant Services Limited’s (IPSL) announcing a deadline of December 31st 2010, for certification of their high risk contractors. The announcement set the ball rolling and led to 16 more companies being certified by the STOW Implementation Board over the past year.
The Energy Chamber was very pleased when the management of Atlantic decided to hold the company accountable to the same standards it requested of its contractors, and be assessed for conformance to STOW.  Atlantic became the first operating company to be STOW certified in Trinidad & Tobago in January 2011.

During the year, grant funds from the Inter-American Development Bank were made available to an additional 20 smaller contractors, making a total of 24 contracting companies to received funding for STOW certification. The Energy Chamber signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with each company in October 2010 and assigned Assessors to get them ready for STOW certification.  Four of the companies that received grant funds under the programme were certified during the period under review. The remaining companies have to be certified by October 2011.

We conducted another Independent Assessor training course in February 2011 to supplement the current pool of Assessors, in preparation for the impending deadline of 31st December 2011 for certification of contractors.  As with the previous Assessor course done in January 2009, the training was conducted by Det Norske Vertias (DNV) over a 1-week period. 
Subsequent to the training, the STOW Implementation Board authorized 8 persons as Independent Assessors to advise contractors on implementing STOW and to assess companies for conformance to STOW.

The Energy Chamber embarked on the STOW programme five years ago to streamline the HSE requirements for prequalifying service providers and contractors, with the ultimate aim of making it easier for them to get on the bid lists of the major oil and gas operating companies in the country.  STOW has moved from being a voluntary industry requirement, to being a mandatory requirement for service providers and contractors to do business with the major clients in the energy industry.  The programme is set to raise the HSE standards among service providers and contractors and transform the way operating companies evaluate them on HSE, during the prequalification process.

This was no easy feat for the Energy Chamber and lots more still have to be done. The STOW Implementation Board is currently working on strategies to ensure that the Energy Chamber can manage the flood of companies that will be applying to be assessed for STOW certification, giving the impending deadline at the end of the year.

We will be wrapping up our involvement with the Inter-American Development Bank in October 2011 and I would like to take this opportunity to thank the Bank for the generous grant without which STOW may not have become a reality.  I would also like to thank the representatives of the Bank for their input and recommendations to improve the implementation of STOW and strengthen the processes that govern STOW.

Going forward, alternative financing arrangements have to be made for STOW. The Energy Chamber looks forward to the support of the signatories of the STOW Charter in ensuring the sustainability of the programme going into the future.