Thai H2O2 joint venture plant wins ‘Highly Protected Risk’ award by FM Global
Our Hydrogen Peroxide Joint Venture (HPJV) Plant in Rayong, Thailand has been honored with the ‘Highly Protected Risk’ (HPR) award by US insurance company FM Global. The award recognizes achievement in loss prevention, safety, and business resilience, rewarding our seven-year process to reach high standard risk mitigation at the Thai site. It is also recognition of the region’s efforts to fulfil our vision to promote a safety-focused culture.
“Resiliency is a choice, and you made that choice,” said Sonia Cambier, our Head of Insurance and Prevention, during the opening of the ‘Highly Protected Risk Award’ ceremony. “Resiliency is also a culture: you understand what can go wrong at the plant, how to prevent it and if it still happens, how to reduce the consequences to the minimum.”
What does this award mean for our employees and nearby communities?
The HPR certification includes both natural risks (storms, earthquakes, floods) and industrial risks (fire, explosion and accidental chemical releases). HPJV, being HPR certified means that it is one of the most reliable suppliers. According to FM Global’s benchmark, the Rayong plant is considered to be eight times less likely to suffer property or business interruption losses than other plants in the Industry. For employees, this certification implies that the site is a very safe place to work, and for communities living in the surrounding areas, it guarantees a high level of risk mitigation.
Seven plants in the Group have achieved the Highly Protected Risk level; four of them are GBU Peroxides plants. Moreover, many other GBUs and plants have established a roadmap to achieve this maximum level of resiliency, with the support of the Insurance & Prevention Team and FM Global risks engineers.
Not without good contingency planning
“It is when things are going wrong that you see the value of all of these efforts,” says Emily Cox, Global Property Insurance Manager. “In the US, Hurricane Harvey and Irma caused, in total, 135 BN USD of property and business interruption losses. BASF and Arkema suffered very large losses. Our eight sites were equally exposed but our total loss ended up below 1M USD simply thanks to good emergency planning.
“Additionally, we had a fire at Deer Park, a Highly Protected Risks facility. What were the results? No one was injured, no downtime, and 1M USD was used to replace the cooling tower. Without good contingency planning, the downtime for the plant could have been at least six months!”
