The Institute of Petroleum Safety, Health and Environment Management (IPSHEM) was set up in 1989 by ONGC in Goa for promoting safety, occupational health, and environment practices & standards in the petroleum sector.

Initially, the institute started at a rented place and in 1997 started functioning from its own campus at Betul village in South Goa when land was allotted and the company constructed its own campus.   

The institute’s mandate was to ensure that ONGCians were given required safety training in different aspects to minimize accidents and casualties. ONGC people working in offshore operations were provided survival training.

Gradually, IPSHEM while catering to the needs of ONGC also catered to industry requirements for training around safety, health, occupational health, and environment issues. ONGC, like other upstream company, also faces a lot of hazardous conditions. In upstream working areas, there are a lot of risks involved. Hence, the institute ensured that people who are working are all having required safety training done for that purpose. The institute also provides training on fire safety.

"We are a unique kind of fire safety centre where we not only attract people from our company but also from outside like refineries, aviation, airports, and others," said Sanjeev Singhal, Executive Director & Head, IPSHEM.

"Now we are transforming the institute to a world class safety training centre by investing Rs. 250 crore in creating a world class safety infrastructure which will be showcased during India Energy Week 2024, scheduled from February 6-9, 2024 at IPSHEM Campus. Spread over 18, 500 square meter, IEW 2024 will witness 35,000+ global and Indian visitors during the four-day event hosted by IPSHEM," commented Singhal.

"The investment will lead to creating nice space to work and create training programs based on the requirements of the companies. This will attract not only ONGCians but it will also act as a huge attraction for the industry. There is no such facility available globally and IPSHEM will help in bridging the gap and provide a single point safety training solutions to the industry within Goa campus," said Singhal. 

Talking about infrastructure, he revealed, "Presently, we are creating infrastructure for certain elements like offshore and onshore operations. We are setting up onshore training facilities with a drilling rig and workover area. We have a process safety plant which for onshore operations. We have an offshore operations platform also. As of today, there is no training institute in the world with an offshore platform to provide hands-on training. We are going to create world class classrooms once the whole set up is ready," Singhal said adding that IPSHEM will also have helicopter facilities within the campus.

Elaborating further, Singhal said: “We have got an offshore underwater training program, offshore platform, and created an oil spill management facility (which is another unique thing which nowhere you will find because they take you to the sea for this exercise) because we have created a big pool which is inside the campus and will be a big attraction for the industry people. We will get the trainer, equipment, and all facilities inside the campus. Lot of people from different industries have been asking for these kinds of training."  

"We will have a helicopter underwater escape training process which is world class. There are many training institutes but they do not match our level. Our quality and our level of scenarios are comprehensive in nature and world class. This training involves putting the trainees into the helicopter and we create a scenario in which if the helicopter ditches into the water during drilling in the offshore platform they will survive. They will be put into different kinds of scenarios for e.g. waves are created, rain, fog, and others. That is unique as we have shells which accommodate different kinds of possibilities and different kinds of helicopters which are in service," Singhal informed.

IPSHEM is set to become a unique training centre which will provide training in safety across all platforms covering all elements of upstream and downstream. “We are open to any kind of training which caters to requirements of the chemical sector. We have partnered with the National Institute of Disaster Management (NIDM). We are open to partner with any industry for initiatives on transport safety and chemical safety. We can customize courses for any industry as per the requirement. We are in a position to hold any type of safety training programs at our place,” commented Singhal.

IPSHEM also plans to create world class level classrooms in future. Presently, IPSHEM has a hostel capacity of 60 rooms and it is going to add 76 room soon.

In 2023, the institute trained 9,000 people of which 600 were from outside ONGC with 14,000 days of training and in 2024, IPSHEM is planning to increase its training capacity by more than 20 percent and is planning to train around 3,000 non-ONGC people.

Commenting on new courses, Singhal said, "We have right now 14+ courses designed as per our requirement but in future we will add more courses once the facilities get ready. We have designed courses for NIDM and Director General for Mine Safety. We are in the process of transformation and once the facility comes into the place we are going to design new safety certification courses as per the requirement of companies/industries. We are open to partner with any industry for such initiatives for transport safety and chemical safety modules."

"In a few months, we will have a number of international accredited training programs which are in the process of getting designed - IDC, Nebosh, and IOSH. We are also working on getting accreditation from government agencies like the National Safety Council (NSC) to ensure quality and reliability. We are working with them as the Industry is not aware about it and focus will be on providing hands-on training as well as classroom based training," Singhal added. 

IPSHEM has also developed a laboratory for developing procedures related to hydrogen in consortium with ONGC Energy Centre. “We have installed one megawatt solar panel and in another three to four months we will have grid connectivity which will provide us facilities during night time. In toto, we are carbon neutral as we are consuming less than what we are producing through the solar system,” he said.   

According to him, the new facilities are getting ready. “50% will be ready by the Ist week of February and the remaining will be ready by June 2024 and the institute will run in full capacity June-July 2024 onwards," Singhal informed.  

The institute also monitors the environmental impact in offshore operations by conducting a study ensuring that offshore operations were not creating any kind of marine danger or marine risk. Samples are taken, analyzed, and damage is seen. If there is anything, it is reported and corrective measures are taken. This is done for both the eastern offshore as well as western offshore and the basic purpose is to measure the health of the sea.

IPSHEM also has a huge database of different parameters from 1984 onwards and this is helping the institute in training analysis and coming up with new training modules, publishing international and national papers where data is used, and also focusing on onshore operations for EIA (Environmental Impact Assessment) operations.