WINNERS of the second round of the Dubal Safety Awards were honoured for their achievements in 2012 at a gala dinner held at the World Trade Centre, Dubai, and attended by some 1,000 guests and employees.

Abdulla Kalban, Dubal’s president and CEO, said the company made good progress towards its ‘zero harm’ goal in 2012. “The total recordable injury frequency rate at our Jebel Ali site, measured per million man-hours, was 3.26. This was a continuation of the declining trend of recent years – we achieved 4.21 in 2010 and 3.64 in 2011 – and is more than 75 per cent lower than the 13.2 reported in 2004,” he said. “Moreover, our lost time injury frequency rate of 0.22 in 2012 represents a 90 per cent decline on the 2.31 achieved in 2004. While these measures confirm that we’re working safer, any injury is one too many. We can never be complacent about safety but instead must continually give priority attention to it.”

Each year, the Dubal Safety Awards are presented in several categories and on this occasion they comprised the Dubal Team Safety Awards; Most Active and Safe Employee Awards; Dubal Milestone Awards; Most Improved Area awards; and EHS Representative Awards.

The gala dinner and award ceremony represented the culmination of a detailed process involving nominations for the awards in the various categories, short-listing of entries, and adjudication by a panel of judges – with this year’s team awards evaluated by an external panel comprising representatives from Emirates Aluminium (Emal), SNC Lavalin, McDermot, HSE Council, Enoc and Alex Construction. The evaluation criteria included both leading and lagging indicators.

A Dubal statement reiterated that the company would pursue its corporate vision “to be one of the best companies in the global primary aluminium industry in production, markets, people and results by 2020.” In pursuant of that vision, the statement said, the company strives continually for excellence in every area.  “This is reflected in an on-going quest to achieve ‘zero harm to people and the environment,’ which is embodied in the corporation-wide habit of placing the safety of employees first and foremost in all aspects of the business, without compromise.”

It said the same quest underscored the Dubal Safety Awards which it stressed were held annually to celebrate the corporation’s achievements to date, recognise and reward achievers so as to motivate employees, sustain record performances and set new targets. Specific recognition is given to those departments, teams and contractors that play a significant role in improving safety behaviour and thus Dubal’s overall safety performance. 

An entirely state-owned enterprise, Dubal owns and operates a primary aluminium smelter with capacity of one million tonnes annually at Jebel Ali, Dubai – the world’s largest single-site primary aluminium smelter using pre-bake anode technology.