North America and Africa join global process safety network

Chemical engineers in the US and South Africa are the latest to achieve Professional Process Safety Engineer registration - a global initiative led by the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IChemE) to improve process safety in the chemical and process industries.

Rod Prior, principal consultant at SHExcellence, based in Gauteng, South Africa, and Dr Kiran Krishna, principal technical safety engineer at Shell Exploration and Production Company, Houston, USA, join nearly 70 other chemical engineers enrolled or registered as Professional Process Safety Engineers in Europe, Asia and Australasia.

The initiative sets a global standard for the discipline of process safety and is peer reviewed and positioned at the same professional level as Chartered Engineer (CEng) and Professional Engineer (PEng).

Organisations currently housing registered Professional Process Safety Engineers include: ABB, AMEC, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Optimus, BG Group, SBM Malaysia Sdn Bhd, Arup and GHD.

Neil Atkinson, IChemE’s director of qualifications and international development, said: “Over the past two years, IChemE has been building its capacity and capability to roll out the Professional Process Safety Engineer register, which has been warmly welcomed by the chemical and process industries.

“There are now nearly 70 ‘trailblazing’ chemical engineers enrolled or registered as Professional Process Safety Engineers. They will provide a core of registered engineers to mentor and support the growth of the standard over the next few years.

“We are particularly pleased to welcome Rod Prior and Kiran Krishna to the register. Their excellent achievement now means the initiative has foundations in major chemical engineering hubs on five continents: North America, Africa, Europe, Asia and Australasia.”

In North America, Shell’s Dr Kiran Krishna said: “I am truly honoured to be a registered Professional Process Safety Engineer. I’m sure this initiative will attract more talent to process safety not only from chemical engineering but from other engineering disciplines too, ensuring that process safety has a healthy pipeline of practitioners for the future.”

South Africa’s first Professional Process Safety Engineer, Rod Prior, said: “It was with great pleasure and a lot of pride that I received the new qualification of Professional Process Safety Engineer.”