Abstract
PETRONAS, the National Oil Company (NOC) of Malaysia, is currently operating in more than 30 countries across the globe where environment-related national regulations and practising standards differ in one way or another. PETRONAS, which comprises a group of upstream and downstream companies, finds it appropriate to establish a set of Group "Minimum Environmental Management Standards" (MEMS) to ensure that all its operations and plants worldwide are operated to at least meet the MEMS requirements and thereby minimise harm to the environment.
The elements in the MEMS were developed on the basis of the project or asset life cycle. The criteria for consideration in the MEMS include internal and external stakeholders’ concerns, critical environmental issues relating to consumption of natural resources or emissions at the operations, commonly reported parameters of oil majors and data collection capability and availability. A phased-approach is adopted for the development and implementation of the MEMS, focusing on basic and critical parameters in the first phase while allowing operating companies to develop for new requirements in later phases.
Development work began with extensive internal and external document research on related subjects. Drafting of the document was carried out by a group of technical professionals and operation staff based on in-house resources and experience. Finally, a series of internal consultation sessions with various stakeholders was conducted to ensure management buy-in and practicality of the guide and specificity of its implementation before the document was approved by the Group Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) Committee for implementation group-wide.
The expected challenges of implementing the MEMS within the Group would include strong management will and sustained education and communication on the subject. Implementation status of the initiative will be audited by the Group HSE Division one year after the commencement of implementation group-wide
