Managing Environmental and Health Risks: Decommissioning a Former Oil Refinery Site

Contract Overview

Delta-Simons is a multi-disciplinary environmental and health and safety consultancy providing trusted advice and solutions to ‘Protect People and Planet’ through facilitating sustainable development.

Our EHS Team were appointed to develop a bespoke Environmental, Health and Safety Management System for a Site formerly operated as an onshore oil refinery. 

The Site was undertaking a phased decommissioning of the legacy infrastructure and associated remediation to enable redevelopment.  

Contract Challenges

Oil refinery site decommissioning carries a lot of potential risk to both people and the environment. Phased decommissioning plans must adequately account for health, safety, environmental and, in particular, hazardous substance risks.

Due to the potential high risk associated with a legacy product and infrastructure, our team provided technical support to help our client manage those risks effectively, ensure compliance with relevant legislative requirements and continually drive improvement in EHS performance.

Working closely with the client team, particularly the site’s EHS representative, our team identified potential environmental and health & safety risks associated with the current setup and operations. 

Our Solution

Information garnered from site inspections and key EHS documents was used to update the site's Environmental Aspects and Impacts Register, Health & Safety Hazards and EHS Risks and Opportunities registers. 

To reflect current operations, a set of procedures and operational controls tailored to the client’s needs were developed in line with ISO 14001 and HSG65 requirements, to aid them in the management process of the most significant risks. Our team;

• Identified key risks and opportunities associated with the site’s operations;
• Produced relevant environmental and health and safety registers;
• Assured management via a comprehensive set of procedures and operational controls tailored to the client’s needs and organisation;
• Performed a gap analysis, highlighting areas not covered by the management system that required further investigation and controls to ensure compliance with legislative requirements.

Such was the client's confidence in our expertise, our experience EHS team were subsequently requested to provide on-demand support on complementary technical matters that were not originally in the brief including supporting the production of the Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) assessment.

Get In Touch

As a national provider with a regional presence, we work with clients from multiple sectors including; industrial, commercial and residential developers, retailers, industrial manufacturers, fund managers, institutional investors, hi-tech companies, the public sector and charitable organisations. For the past 30 years, our team has provided a holistic suite of trusted environmental services and advice, designed to mitigate risk to both people and the environment, whilst removing the pain from planning or maintaining developments, buildings and/or assets.

If you are looking to partner with an environmentally conscious, holistic environmental health and safety services supplier, get in touch with our team by emailing EHS Unit Director Charlotte Buffoni at charlotte.buffoni@deltasimons.com.