Chemicals and energy giant Sasol will be participating in the Hazardex Live 2025 Conference with Michelle Du Preez, an explosion prevention practitioner for the company's Hazardous Location Centre in South Africa, discussing blanketing, how it impacts a business, and the role that human behaviour plays in the process.

The topic of blanketing or not blanketing within hazardous areas is a pendulum that has swung from one side of “no classification” where people were oblivious of the concept, to the other extreme of blanketing where they say: “classify as much as you can”. From what I see is that currently industries prefer the blanketing approaches due to some uncertainties. This presentation will discuss what blanketing is and how it impacts businesses and the impact on human behaviour that it has. It will also discuss accurate classification and the impact and possible gains and losses when looking at human behaviour.

About the author:

Michelle Du Preez is an explosion prevention practitioner for the Hazardous Location Centre Sasol South Africa. She has 15 years of experience in petroleum environment. In 2021 her focus shifted to apply her knowledge in electrical engineering, safety management and project management to the field of explosion prevention.