Equate wins international HSE Gold Award

Equate received the award on March 17, 2009, at an official ceremony under the patronage of Minister of Oil Sheikh Ahmad Al-Abdullah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah with the attendance of the Chairman and Managing Director of Kuwait Petroleum International Hussain Isamil at the Radisson SAS Hotel in conjunction with the inauguration of the three-day 5th International Health, Safety, Environment and Loss Prevention Professional Development Conference and Exposition.

In a statement after receiving the award, Equate President & CEO Hamad Al-Terkait said:

"The safety behavior of our employees along with various HSE programs and Six Sigma projects have attributed to this success. The improvements we have seen in Recordable Injury Rate (RIR) over the last few years have been tremendous."

Al-Terkait added "Despite the commissioning of three of our new units, the RIR was 0.057 with a Zero process safety incident, which reflect a World Class record. It came along with an all time record of concurring 16.5 Million safe work hours since mid 2006 without any day away work case. In this region , its a Big Challenge! We are very proud of it."

On his part, Equate Environment, Health & Safety (EH&S) Department Leader Yousef Hashim Al-Gharabally said "We have driven all our efforts to get our employees and contractors to commit to an overall positive safety behavior which led to milestones in several fields."

The award is organized by the American Society of Safety Engineers (ASSE) Kuwait Chapter as part of the ASSE Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) Excellence Awards using top-notch international measures for scoring and valuation.

In appreciation for its sustainable development efforts, Equate previously earned the His Highness the Amir Award for the Best Plant in Kuwait, the Award of Best Gulf Company in Recruiting Nationals, , as well as Kuwait's Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) Award in the Industrial and Oil Sector. In addition, it has received the Highly Commended Best Community Program Award during the First Middle East CSR Award Summit held in Dubai.

Considered one of the world's leading companies in producing Polyethylene and Ethylene Glycol, Equate was established in 1995 and it is presently a joint venture between Petrochemical Industries Company (PIC), The Dow Chemical Company, Boubyan Petrochemicals Company and Qurain Petrochemical Industries Company. It commenced production in 1997 and currently provides markets in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe with high quality petrochemical products.