Occupational safety basics understanding in oil and gas industry: An evaluation

In project management, risk is a surprise that might be resulted in a good, or bad, impact on a project. However, people tend to consider it a threat. This study is an evaluation work to the understanding of the risk management and safety culture of the construction sector in oil and gas industry in Iraq. A survey questionnaire was prepared, tested, distributed to a sample of engineers, from several engineering specialties, who are working on different levels in the mentioned sector. A high percent of the respondents are safety engineers, and some have a higher university degree, e.g. MS an Ph.D. The collected data then analyzed using different statistical approaches. The results show that there is a good understanding of the safety in general among engineers. However, risk management and planning tools are not understood effectively among the respondents. Moreover, having a higher degree or specializing in different majors have no impact on perceptional understanding of the safety and risk. This study is one of the first steps in studying the occupational safety in Iraq construction and oil and gas industries. Since Iraq is considered for rebuilding after different wars, international firms are in need to understand how safety is managed and to what level it is applied. From this perspective, this study is one of studies that help achieving the firms’ goal regarding safety.