HSE Management Systems

In June 2006, a number of regulators for the onshore petroleum industry in Australia released a discussion paper for industry comment on the need for a self assessment framework for assessing and demonstrating health, safety and environment (HSE) compliance, primarily focussed on the onshore drilling sector.

The outcome of this consultation delivered the framework detailed in A tool for the self-assessment of Health, Safety and Environment Management Systems.

The objective of this framework is to assist operator companies and contractors to self-assess the level of effectiveness of their systems in delivering acceptable HSE performance. It also seeks to clarify regulatory expectations to industry for such systems and assist companies and contractors in identifying components of their management systems that may need to be improved to deliver greater overall system effectiveness. The adoption of such a tool by both industry and regulators is believed will greatly assist in delivering greater consistency in regulatory expectations and requirements for HSE compliance for the industry Australia wide.

This is not a mandatory tool, but is provided to assist individual companies and contractors in self-assessing and the continuous improvement of the effectiveness of their HSE management systems.