The current director of Health, Safety, Security and Employment (HSSE) at Oil & Gas UK is set to retire this week.
Robert Paterson will step down from his position after eight years with the industry body after originally joining from the Health and Safety Executive’s (HSE) offshore division.
Paterson was closely involved with the post-Piper Alpha offshore regulatory framework for health and safety, operational strategy development and direction and in providing legal and enforcement advice and guidance to inspectors.
Mick Borwell will take over responsibility for the position in addition to his role as environment director.
He will take up the role on an interim position allowing the current scope of the HSSE directorate and others to be reviewed in light of the changing regulatory and economic climate.
Borwell joined Oil & Gas UK in 2007 and led the environment team at UKOOA, Oil and Gas UK’s precursor, for six years.
He entered the upstream oil and gas industry in 1989 in a consultancy position with BP. He subsequently worked in the Health, Safety and Environment departments at Occidental and Elf, where he was a member of the incident investigation team and had responsibility for environment, occupational health and the management of exploration in environmentally sensitive areas.
Deirdre Michie, Oil & Gas UK chief executive, said: “Robert has made an outstanding contribution to safety in our industry over his long career, which has been guided by a strong vision of the safer workplace, whether onshore or off.
“He firmly steered the association’s response to major incidents, such as the Macondo disaster and the North Sea helicopter fatal accidents, raising the bar on safety performance across the UK industry as a result.
“He also spearheaded the introduction of the UK Oil and Gas Industry Safety Awards and Oil & Gas UK’s Health and Safety Report, the comprehensive annual review the UK offshore oil and gas industry’s safety performance. We all at Oil & Gas UK thank Robert for his contribution and wish him a long and happy retirement.”
