Ken Rivers, former Chair of the COMAH Strategic Forum, will be speaking at Hazardex Live! 2023 about how extraordinary situations require extraordinary thinking and how that has developed both within industry and regulator as we tackle current and emerging challenges.

Reflections on managing major hazards and how tackling extraordinary situations requires some extraordinary thinking. This has developed both within industry and the regulator, impacting their relationship.

These changes need to evolve further as we grasp both the current challenges in process safety as well as the emerging challenges of decarbonisation/energy transition, climate change adaptation and the pandemic while grasping the new capability of digitalisation and the broader perspectives offered by cross sector learning.

The future is challenging but we have a wealth of experience, knowledge and expertise that we can bring to bear to help both our sector and other industries. The way we think about major hazards fundamentally impacts our ability to eliminate, prevent and mitigate disaster. It changes how we act and can transform our capability as individuals and organisations.

Ken Rivers

Ken Rivers has recently stepped down as Chair of the COMAH Strategic Forum. He is a member of  the Industry Safety Steering Group monitoring the follow up to the Building & Fire regulations review post Grenfell. He is a Past President of the Institution of Chemical Engineers.

Ken’s background is in the oil industry, which included being CEO of Refining NZ and responsibility for Shell’s UK refining operations. He is a past President of the UK Petroleum Industry Association (UKPIA) and he chaired the industry/regulator task force in the wake of the Buncefield terminal explosion and more recently chaired the “Midstream Oil Sector Government and Industry Task Force”, which considered ways of improving the resilience of oil product supplies following the government review.