Process safety
HAZOP and hazard studies, barrier thinking, and the unglamorous follow-through that turns a study into a change on the plant. The work of asking what a facility will do when it does something it was never designed to do.
PORTFOLIO / 2026
DOC. MS-2026-01
REV. 03
Mazhar Shaikh
22 years in service2004 — 2026
Twenty-two years in process safety and fire risk, most of it inside plants where a quiet day is the result, not the absence of work.
Read the case
01
The record
STATEMENT OF WORKMazhar Shaikh is a chemical engineer who has spent his working life on the question of how complex, dangerous systems fail — and what has to be true for them not to.
He works in Kuwait Oil Company’s Exploration & Gas Directorate, covering HSE and process safety for the directorate’s gas facilities and field operations. Before KOC he led HSE and fire protection at Cairn Oil & Gas in Surat, and worked in process safety at ONGC Petro Additions. He holds a first-class degree in chemical engineering, a post-diploma in industrial safety, the British Safety Council’s international diploma, NEBOSH Oil & Gas, and is a Certified Fire Protection Specialist.
In 2022 he was elected President of the ASSP Kuwait Chapter. The chapter was awarded Platinum status — ASSP’s highest chapter recognition — for 2022–23, the year of his presidency. He is the chapter’s Safety Professional of the Year for 2023.
- 22Years in service
- 04National research
presentations - 01Platinum chapter
2022–23 - SPYSafety Professional
of the Year, 2023
02
The line
CAREER TRACE / 2004–2026A straight line is rare in this industry. His has run from a chemical engineering classroom in Gujarat to a gas directorate in Ahmadi, with one consistent argument: safety is an engineering discipline before it is a culture.
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2004
Chemical engineering
South Gujarat University
B.Eng, First Class. The foundation: mass, energy, and what happens when a process leaves its envelope.
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2007–2012
Safety as a discipline
British Safety Council · MG Labour Institute
IDipOSH and a Post Diploma in Industrial Safety, both with distinction. Later, NEBOSH Oil & Gas.
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2014–2016
HSE & fire, on site
Cairn Oil & Gas, Surat
Team Leader, HSE and Fire. Field operations, emergency response, and the daily gap between procedure and practice.
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2016–now
Kuwait Oil Company
Exploration & Gas Directorate, Ahmadi
Safety Engineer in the HSE team: gas facilities, drilling and well operations, process safety studies.
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2022–2026
The chapter
ASSP Kuwait Chapter
President, 2022–23. Platinum Chapter Award. Safety Professional of the Year, 2023. Deputy Director, GCC HSE Excellence Awards 2026.
03
The practice
SCOPE / FOUR CLAUSESFire & explosion
Certified Fire Protection Specialist. Fire risk in hydrocarbon facilities — from ignition control and passive protection to the readiness of the people who respond at three in the morning.
Management systems
HSE systems that survive contact with a live site: assurance, audit, contractor interface, and documentation written to be used rather than filed.
Field & wells
Exploration and gas operations. Drilling, well work, and the interface between a procedure and the person carrying it out — where safety is either real or rhetorical.
- HAZOP / PHA
- Barrier management
- PSM implementation
- Fire risk assessment
- HSE management systems
- Contractor HSE
- Emergency response
- Training & facilitation
04
The new barrier
AI IN HSE / PDC 2026At PDC 2026 he co-presented a live demonstration of AI inside an HSE workflow — concept to application, in the room.
The argument is not that AI makes safety easier. It is that AI is a control, and controls have to earn their place. A model that answers fluently has not thereby become a barrier. It has to be bounded, tested against known conditions, and kept under a human hand at the point where a decision becomes irreversible.
That is the older discipline showing through: define the hazard, identify the failure mode, verify the safeguard. The technology is new. The burden of proof is not.
With colleagues from Kuwait Oil Company · 13th ASSP Kuwait PDC, October 2026
05
The chapter
SERVICE RECORD / ASSP KUWAITThe chapter is the profession’s shared infrastructure — the place where a safety engineer’s private judgement becomes a public standard. He has served it as Secretary, as President, and now on its advisory committee.
Platinum
2022–23
ASSP’s highest chapter recognition, awarded for the year of his presidency.
- 2022–2023PresidentASSP Kuwait Chapter · Platinum Chapter Award
- 2023Safety Professional of the YearASSP Kuwait Chapter SPY Award
- 2026Deputy DirectorASSP GCC HSE Excellence Awards
- 2018TrainerHAZOP Awareness Course, ASSP Kuwait
- CurrentAdvisory CommitteeASSP Kuwait Chapter
A
Stages & papers
SELECTED RECORD-
2026
Session
Integrating AI into HSE — from concept to practical application
Live demonstration · 13th ASSP Kuwait PDC
-
2019
Paper
Do the Right Thing at Right Time: KOC’s Way of Integrating Process Safety into Process-Related Facility Projects
SPE Kuwait Oil & Gas Show and Conference · co-author
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2019
Talk
Barrier-based process safety
IFHSE Summit, Oman
-
2018
Course
HAZOP Awareness Course
ASSP Kuwait Chapter · trainer
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—
Research
Four national-level research presentations
Early career · process and safety engineering
B
The person
PLATE 01 / PORTRAIT
PLATE 01 · PORTRAIT
A chemical engineer from South Gujarat, a Kuwait-based safety professional, and a chapter builder. He works in English, Hindi and Gujarati.
The through-line is not a technology or a sector. It is a habit of mind: treat every claim of safety as a hypothesis, and every safeguard as something that can be inspected, tested, and — when it fails — replaced.
Credentials
- CFSP
- Certified Fire Protection Specialist
- FSP
- Functional Safety Professional
- NEBOSH
- International Oil & Gas
- IDipOSH
- British Safety Council · Distinction
- Post Diploma
- Industrial Safety, MG Labour Institute · Distinction
- B.Eng
- Chemical Engineering, South Gujarat University · First Class
06 — CONTACT
For advisory work,