On the sidelines of EGYPS 2023– Methanex celebrates the publishing of the book “Towards Safer Processes in the Oil, Gas, and Petrochemical Industries – An Overview of Egyptian PSM Standards and Guidelines” – documenting the unique journey of collaboration between members of the Egyptian Process Safety Steering Committee, leading to the development of a full Process Safety Management framework for the Egyptian Oil, Gas and Petrochemicals sector. The book summarizes the 24 PSM standards and guidelines developed by the Egyptian Process Safety Steering Committee’s Technical Sub-Committee and approved and issued by the Egyptian General Petroleum Corporation (EGPC).

The standards and guidelines included in this book will enable sector companies to design, build and operate safe facilities based on global industry best practices. The book is available on the PSM Egypt website www.psmegypt.com along with the expanded versions of the documents.

The book includes 24 standards and guidelines covering: Risk Management Standard, Major Accident Hazard Management Guideline, Safety Critical Element Management Guideline, Process Safety Management Program Standard, Process Safety Implementation Guidelines, PSM Competency Management Guideline, Management of Change (MOC) Guideline, Process Safety Culture Assessment Guideline, Process Safety (KPIs) Guideline, Hazard Identification (HAZID) Guideline, Process Safety Studies in The Oil & Gas Major Projects, Inherently Safer Design (ISD) Guidelines, Layout and Facility Siting Guideline, Hazard and Operability (HAZOP) Guideline, Quantitative Risk Assessment (QRA) Guideline, Fire and Explosion Risk Assessment (FERA) Guideline, Hazardous Area Classification (HAC) Guideline, Layers of Protection Analysis (LOPA) Guideline, Fire & Gas Mapping Guideline, Alarm Management Guideline, Safety Case Standard, As Low As Reasonably Practicable (ALARP) Demonstration Guideline, Safety Case Appraisal Guideline, PSM Glossary of Definitions and Abbreviations.

Those documents underwent a rigorous quality review process involving local and international peer reviewers to check their quality against global standards and best practices with an eye on the needs of the Egyptian Oil & Gas and Petrochemicals Sector, with the sole purpose of saving lives by making the industry’s processes safer.

Commenting on this milestone, Mohamed Shindy, Methanex Egypt’s Managing Director and member of the Egyptian PSM Steering Committee, said: “We at Methanex are very happy and proud to see this book come to light. This book encapsulates a long journey of a shared vision between Methanex, ECHEM, EGPC, and the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources to establish a safer future for all of us and those who come after us through establishing a PSM program for Egypt; a program that has become a reality with the support of H.E. the Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources, Tarek El Molla and that will impact the oil, gas and petrochemical industry now and in the future.”

This book is the culmination of a long journey to embed PSM within the oil, gas and petrochemical industries in Egypt, one that started in 2018 with Methanex Egypt and ECHEM launching an annual PSM conference, followed by the signing of a PSM MoU with the Ministry of Petroleum and Mineral Resources in 2020 to create a PSM road map and an Egyptian PSM steering committee to drive the PSM agenda in the sector. This successful partnership has resulted in the development of the 24 high quality PSM standards and guidelines at the hands the PSM Technical Sub-Committee made up of members of the Ministry of Petroleum’s Capacity Building program led by Methanex PSM expert. The full set of standards and guidelines, summarized in the newly published book, are being issued by EGPC.