Occupational Health & Safety

Our Safety Vision

At Numac Drilling Services Pty Ltd we pride ourselves in growing and nurturing our most important assets, our staff. Our company is committed to conducting operations in a safe and productive manner.

We believe our employees are doing Numac a great service, thus we have a great responsibly ensuring that they are returned to their families healthy, happy and well compensated for their time.

Furthermore we see our health and safety program differentiating us from our competitors. We believe, that through working closely with our clients in an open and honest environment, setting realistic goals, and empowering all staff with the responsibilities associated with safety, that we can maintain a safe workplace and produce remarkable efficiencies.

OH&S Guidelines

In support of our company vision, Numac management accepts the responsibility for the prevention of accidents, through the identification and elimination of workplace hazards and the promotion of safety awareness among our employees and contractors.

Numac Drilling will abide by all statutory Acts and Regulations as a minimum standard and will strive to maintain a level of safety that extends well beyond the legal requirements.

To consistently achieve this aim, we ensure that:

• Supervisory personnel understand and accept their responsibility for preventing injuries to the people they supervise.
• All employees accept their responsibility to work safely and to extend this concern to other employees.
• Equipment and processes in both new and existing operations is correctly operated, designed and maintained to ensure compliance with safety and health requirements.
• Accidents and incidents are thoroughly investigated to prevent their recurrence.
• Employees attend company sponsored training programs and inductions, as an integral part of their employment conditions, and
• Whenever illness or injury affects an employee, a rehabilitation program is put into place to assist the employee to return to their employment.

Numac Drilling Services Pty Ltd encourages employee participation in all matters affecting the safety and health of our people and invite suggestions from our work force of ways in which safety can be improved.

OH&S Management System

Numac Drilling Services Pty Ltd has made a significant investment into the development of a series of OH&S tools that facilitate an environment of continued improvement. The objective of this proactive approach is to identify risks and eliminate them before they result in injury or property damage.

Induction Procedure

Employees partake in an extensive induction process prior to attending an active work site.

The induction is a three step process:

• Company Policy Briefing – This is a “classroom” based briefing that covers all policy documentation. This is designed to give new staff a clear understanding of the company’s expectations.
• OH&S overview – This section covers all aspects of OH&S policy and the fundamentals behind our continuous improvement cycle.
• Rig & Equipment Induction – The final stage of the induction process is to actually demonstrate the use of our tools and equipment in the field. New employees may only operate equipment after proving they are safe and proficient in its use and have signed off by a supervisor. (Completed as required)

Protective Personal Equipment

All site personnel are provided with appropriate protective clothing and protective equipment as a sound base for our OH&S systems. Long sleeves, Long pants, steel capped boots, leather gloves, safety glasses, hearing protection, hard hats & sunscreen, are a mandatory requirement for all drill crews on all sites. All sites are assessed individually to allow for the provision of further protections if required.

Safe Work Procedures (SWP’s)

Safe work procedures for all tasks frequently performed by our drilling crews are under continual development. All staff are briefed on SWP’s and then signed off by a drilling supervisor after proving their ability to complete the task in a safe and efficient manner.

Job Safety Analyses (JSA’s)

In addition to SWP’s we have also developed a range of JSA’s for all major aspects of our daily work routine. JSA’s are used on site to reinforce awareness of existing hazards and ensure the proper use of controls designed to reduce the level of risk. The JSA’s format is additionally used in a dynamic role for the assessment of hazards that are specific to the site. Drilling crews always carry blank JSA templates on hand and have been trained to complete assessments for site specific conditions.

Incident Investigation

Our safety system requires that all loss or near loss events are investigated thoroughly. We believe that reporting and investigation of “near miss” occurrences will greatly reduce the likelihood of injury, equipment and environmental damage. Investigations are extremely thorough and based around a “root cause" analysis. Mandatory near loss reporting is aimed at identifying risks and eliminating them before they cause harm. The system is additionally designed to highlight trends in employee behaviour, be they positive and require re-enforcement, or negative, requiring analysis and development.

Risk Analysis

During commision each of our rigs undergoes a risk analysis under the standards set out by the Australian Mining Industry and the relevent state legisation for plant and machinery. This model can be used by crews to make assesments on site whereby local conditions could initiate additional concerns requireing actions.

Site Observations

To ensure that policies, SWP’s and JSA’s are being followed and used correctly, we conduct regular “observations” whereby we randomly audit a site in a safety context. JSA’s are used as a reference for the observer and any questionable actions are recorded and discussed with the crews. Observations are conducted via management or done peer to peer. Data is collated to highlight any issues that may need to be re-communicated to the crews or any area in which the crews can be rewarded for their safety performance.

Safety Meetings

Daily Tool Box Meetings

Prior to commencing work each day the crew is required to partake in a short meeting. This forum allows the discussion of site specific issues or items that may have arisen form the previous day’s operation.

Weekly Staff Meetings

We have an official safety meeting once a week where all employees are encouraged to add subjects to the agenda. Any incidents or near losses that have been investigated the previous week are discussed with the entire group verbally and via documented “safety alerts”. These alerts highlight any changes to SWP, JSA’s resulting from recent investigations.

As a further step in increasing employee ownership of our safety system we have a peer elected employee safety representative who is responsible for raising issues on behalf of any workmate who may not feel comfortable doing so.

Minutes are taken from each meeting and any items requiring action are given timelines and allocated to the relevant employees. The progress of such actions is reported at following meetings.