The Southern Argentina YPF Business Unit, UNAS, develops a wide Exploration and Production activity in more than twenty oilfields, dispersed in a vast area of twenty thousand square kilometers within the San Jorge Basin. The daily activity involves ten thousand workers under rigorous climatic conditions.

The UNAS E&P operation is carried out in mature oil fields, some of them under continuous operation since 1907.

In the last five years under a stage of changes in respect to a new prevailing social model, UNAS emphasized the need to improve its Safety Model, in order to deal with new and relevant elements of consideration: new government regulations, increasing number of union conflicts, social claims, and certain demands to increase workforce by poorly qualified personnel. Under this relevant context, UNAS defined and implemented a very challenging and solid model aiming to add value to the stakeholders by targeting a few critical elements of the Safety Culture.

This paper provides a case of study of how the organization faces new opportunities of improving safety performance in a turbulent environment by means of accomplishment of a strong Health and Safety Policy and specific concrete actions.

Keywords:
operational safety, risk assessment, knowledge management, safety risk management, risk and uncertainty assessment, HSSE reporting, safety observation, continuous improvement, Upstream Oil & Gas, responsibility
Subjects:
HSSE & Social Responsibility Management, Safety, Risk Management and Decision-Making, Information Management and Systems, HSSE management systems, HSSE reporting, Operational safety, Safety risk management, Risk, uncertainty, and risk assessment, Knowledge management
Copyright 2009, Society of Petroleum Engineers
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