Technical Programme

The Leadership Multiplier—How Leaders Create Healthy, Resilient, and High‑Performing Organisation

As organisations operate in increasingly demanding, high‑consequence environments, the limits of traditional approaches to occupational health are becoming more visible. Health risks today are rarely sudden or isolated, they are more often gradual, cumulative, and embedded in the way work is designed, prioritised and executed. Mental strain, fatigue and cognitive overload develop over time, quietly eroding attention, judgement, and the ability to sustain performance under pressure. Organisational choices around workload, pace of change, resource allocation, role clarity, and support systems shape how people experience pressure, manage complexity, and recover from stress. These conditions directly influence not only wellbeing, but also error rates, disengagement, and long‑term operational reliability. This plenary will examine how leaders act as multipliers of health, moving beyond compliance‑based health management towards a proactive and preventive approach. It will explore how leadership behaviors and organisational design can reduce psychosocial risk, protect cognitive capacity,and integrate occupational health, mental wellbeing, and human performance into core business decisions. Ultimately, the session will highlight a fundamental reality: sustainable safety, resilience, and performance depend on the health of the people who deliver them.

Mental health challenges, including stress, anxiety, burnout, and isolation are increasingly influencing safety outcomes, decision-making quality, and workforce retention. In high-risk, remote, and shift-based operations, psychological strain can amplify operational vulnerabilities. This session moves beyond awareness campaigns toward measurable accountability: embedding psychological safety in leadership behaviors, reducing stigma, strengthening early intervention systems, and integrating mental health indicators into HSE dashboards. The objective is to position mental wellbeing as a core pillar of operational excellence and enterprise resilience.

Meaningful engagement ensures just outcomes for all stakeholders and builds an increased sense of trust between stakeholders and companies, which helps to cement the basis for longer-term relationships. It also enables companies to meet regulatory guidelines and international standards. In addition, as the global energy transition proceeds, many companies will make changes to their portfolios to support new low-carbon or renewable energy facilities or look to downsize or close existing oil and gas facilities. In these situations, meaningful engagement will be vital to ensuring that the company is actively contributing to a just energy transition. Meaningful engagement can be considered from two interlinking perspectives: engaging with communities and engaging with workers.

This panel discussion session will explore meaningful engagement in a just transition with a particular focus on Gulf countries, highlighting how companies can work collaboratively with both communities and workers to support fair and inclusive energy transitions. It will also be an opportunity for the UN to communicate its expectations to the industry and beyond in the same context

As operational complexity increases and energy systems evolve, leadership capability becomes the defining factor in sustainable safety performance. The Safety Leadership Academy model emphasises mindset transformation, psychological safety, risk intelligence, and cross-functional collaboration. This session will explore how structured leadership development programs strengthen decision-making under uncertainty, embed human performance principles, and cultivate accountability at all organisational levels. Participants will examine practical case studies, measurable outcomes, and how leadership academies can shape long-term cultural maturity across the industry.

The HSE function is evolving from compliance assurance toward strategic foresight and enterprise risk leadership. Digital transformation, AI-enabled analytics, ESG integration, and stakeholder expectations are redefining the scope and influence of HSE professionals. This fireside conversation will explore what the “HSE Function of the Future” should look like including capability requirements, governance models, data integration, and board-level engagement. Leaders will discuss how to reposition HSE as a value-creating function that drives resilience, operational excellence, and sustainable growth.

Using emerging Vision AI and video analytics applications, this session will examine how rapidly expanding capabilities, from automated hazard detection and compliance monitoring to predictive insights and integrated risk modelling, can transform safety culture. Discussion will focus on where AI should enhance safety performance by augmenting human judgment, and where human presence and intervention remain non-negotiable. At the same time, critical questions will be addressed: What companies should focus on, using AI to replace the frontline workers or to help them improve operational integrity? How can organisations ensure that technology strengthens safety performance without undermining frontline ownership?

Non-accidental deaths (NAD), including cardiac events, undiagnosed medical conditions, substance misuse, and chronic illness, remain a significant yet under-discussed risk in energy operations. While safety systems effectively manage acute incidents, underlying health vulnerabilities often go undetected until critical events occur. This session explores predictive health screening, lifestyle risk mitigation, fatigue interaction, and leadership accountability in preventing non-accidental fatalities. The discussion will focus on integrating occupational health data into enterprise risk management frameworks and elevating workforce health to the same level of rigor applied to process safety.

For decades, the energy sector has reduced fatalities through life-saving rules, barrier management, and strong safety governance. As decarbonisation accelerates, similar discipline is required to manage emerging risks associated with hydrogen, CCS, electrification, and methane reduction programs. This session explores how proven safety frameworks can be adapted to climate risk establishing “climate-critical controls,” accountability models, and verification mechanisms. The discussion will bridge sustainability ambition with operational rigor, ensuring that decarbonisation initiatives are delivered with the same systematic excellence applied to personal and process safety.

The oil and gas industry operates within high-risk, capital-intensive, and geographically dispersed environments where workforce health and well-being are central to safety, productivity, and business ...

​Strategies for High‑Demand Energy Systems: AI Workloads, Renewable Integration, and Environmental Risk

The rapid acceleration of AI‑driven energy demand, data‑center expansion, and large‑scale electrification is fundamentally reshaping the environmental risk profile of the energy system. Environmental impacts are no longer confined to emissions and regulatory compliance but increasingly emerge from system‑level stressors: grid congestion, land‑use pressure, resource intensity, biodiversity impacts, and cumulative effects across the energy value chain. As energy systems scale at unprecedented speed, leaders are required to manage environmental risk in conditions of heightened uncertainty and interdependence. Decisions related to grid architecture, renewable deployment, storage integration, and infrastructure siting now directly influence environmental resilience, community acceptance, and long‑term license to operate. The challenge is not only to decarbonse, but to do so while avoiding the transfer or amplification of environmental risks across regions and ecosystems. This plenary will examine how industry leaders, sustainability executives, and policy influencers are navigating these trade‑offs, moving beyond compliance‑driven environmental management toward proactive, system‑based strategies. It will explore how environmental considerations can be embedded into strategic decision‑making to balance AI‑driven demand growth, renewable integration, and environmental protection recognising that environmental resilience has become a critical condition for sustaining energy systems at scale.

While personal injury metrics have improved globally, Major Accident Events (MAEs) continue to define existential risk in energy operations. Aging assets, complex interfaces, and contractor integration demand renewed focus on barrier health and asset integrity governance. This session explores how organisations are strengthening Safety Critical Element (SCE) management, predictive integrity analytics, and executive visibility of high-consequence risk. Emphasis will be placed on moving beyond TRIR toward measurable prevention of fatalities and catastrophic loss.

As offshore infrastructure matures, decommissioning strategies increasingly balance environmental stewardship, biodiversity enhancement, and socio-economic value. The “Rigs to Reefs” approach has emerged as a viable alternative to full removal in selected geographies. This session will examine regulatory frameworks, environmental impact asesssments, stakeholder engagement, and long-term monitoring practices from global operators. Participants will explore the technical, ecological, and reputational considerations that shape responsible decommissioning decisions, highlighting how collaborative governance between regulators, operators, and environmental experts can deliver measurable marine ecosystem benefits. The session will highlight the case-by-case approach that is deemed to be best practice in producing nature positive outcomes.

FPSO decommissioning is rapidly becoming one of the offshore sector’s most pressing HSSE challenges. The recent entry into force of the Hong Kong Convention on 26 June 2025 introduces mandatory global standards for the safe and environmentally sound recycling of ships and floating units, including FPSOs. At the same time, forecasts indicate that global ship‑recycling capacity may fall short from 2026, tightening access to suitable yards capable of handling large and complex floating assets. 

This session will explore what these developments mean for operators planning FPSO end‑of‑life activities: from managing extensive hazardous materials to securing compliant, high‑integrity recycling routes in a tightening global market.