Life Saving Rules Changing for OSSA Member Sites

Oil Sands Safety Association (OSSA)
“An Incident Free Workforce”
Communique
January 23, 2015
Life Saving Rules Changing for OSSA Member Sites
Over the past few years, the Oil Sands Safety Association (OSSA) and its members (Canadian
Natural, Shell Albian Sands, Suncor, and Syncrude) have been working hard to identify critical
areas for enhanced collaboration.
One exciting outcome announced last year, was the approval of a common set safety rules for
OSSA member sites within the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (RMWB) in Northern
Alberta. This tremendous accomplishment was built upon, and is aligned with the International
Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP) standards, which are internationally recognized.
When in place, these OSSA Regional Safety Rules will be recognized and commonly enforced
across all approved member work sites in order to mitigate risks to workers, reduce confusion
and improve our overall regional safety performance.
The OSSA 7 Life Saving Rules have been identified based upon the history of significant
incidents, injuries and fatalities in our industry. The remaining 12 Supplemental safety rules will
be adopted at member sites where applicable and may be seen on one or more sites in the
future.
Over the next few months you will begin to see several of the OSSA members rolling out these
rules according to their implementation plans, with a target that all approved sites will be aligned
by March 31st, 2015.
More information on this and other OSSA initiatives will be made available on our website at
www.ossa-wb.ca.
Tim Gondek
Executive Director
Oil Sands Safety Association