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Cross-border inspections to strengthen the “safety net” for engineering projects. Since November 2023, in response to the safety challenges associated with overseas oil engineering projects – such as their numerous locations, extended coverage areas, and difficulties in oversight – Sinopec North China Petroleum Engineering has innovatively launched overseas safety inspection programs. By 2025, building on the work done in the previous year, the inspection teams focused on key areas in the Middle East and Africa, strengthened safety management through a closed-loop system, emphasized control at critical points, and implemented measures such as regular on-site inspections and summaries. This approach helped to establish a comprehensive safety protection system for the company’s 35 overseas teams, one that aimed to identify potential hazards, fill in gaps, and strengthen foundational safeguards. Through diligent efforts, by 2025 all of the company’s overseas teams will have achieved a record of zero safety incidents throughout the year. In particular, the SP-158 drilling team in Kuwait has managed to stay accident-free for 15 consecutive years, making it one of Sinopec’s overseas teams with the longest streak of safe operations. Root-cause governance: From \"repeated treatment\" to \"treatment of recurring issues\". According to statistics, during the company’s overseas safety inspections in 2024, a total of 489 various issues were identified. Among them, 18 types of hazards related to electrical safety and fire safety exhibited the tendency to be easy to rectify but difficult to maintain, and prone to recurrence, thus becoming persistent problems that hinder the improvement of overseas safety management. To address the risks associated with high-frequency repetitions, the company takes typical issues as a starting point, applies the \"five returns\" approach to delve into the underlying causes of these problems, and establishes a closed-loop management system that covers inspection, correction, and prevention. The so-called “five returns” involve delving deep into management gaps related to potential hazards, focusing on five aspects: who is responsible, how it should be done, whether it can be done, if it is possible to do it, and how well it is done. By following a step-by-step approach that includes checking standards, overseeing management practices, identifying responsible parties, verifying implementation, and assessing training, visible problems at the site are transformed into areas for improvement in safety management, thereby identifying the weak points in safety management accurately. Node control: Providing “precise protection” for the safety of new projects. For new projects overseas, time is equivalent to profitability, and safety is the prerequisite for that profitability. The inspection team broke away from conventional approaches, shifting from \"post-event inspections\" to \"pre-event monitoring\". With node control as the core, they adopt a \"fast, efficient + ongoing monitoring\" working approach, implementing on-site supervision for major changes and high-risk operations to ensure that inspection personnel remain on duty throughout the process and can handle issues in real time. Proactive engagement is provided for newly launched projects through one-on-one support, with safety controls integrated into every key process such as equipment relocation and endurance testing. “New teams are most afraid of making mistakes at the beginning; by getting involved in advance, we aim to make safety the ‘first habit’. ”said Li Wei, chief expert for international markets at North China Petroleum Engineering. To date, all of the company’s newly established overseas teams have started off with a \"zero safety incidents\" record, thereby establishing a solid \"initial defense line\" for market expansion overseas. Dynamic empowerment: Bridging the ‘last mile’ in grassroots safety. The core of safety management lies in people, while the challenges reside at the grassroots level. During inspections of the Iraq project, the inspection team found that the frontline teams had issues with unclear procedures when handling \"special operation permits\", as well as incomplete JSA analyses; moreover, some key personnel did not have a sufficient understanding of the control standards for unconventional operations. “\"Wherever the problem lies, there the training session will be held!\" The inspection team promptly gathered materials such as international standards, typical cases, and operation videos, and used their spare time to create easy-to-understand teaching materials titled \"Explanation of the Procedures for Handling Special Work Permits in Overseas Sites.\" At the same time, 70 safety directors and relevant responsible persons from project teams in Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, and other locations were gathered at the construction site in Iraq to participate in on-site and online training sessions and discussions. Through the approach of case analysis and interactive Q&A, the standards for filling out forms and the key points of risk analysis were clarified. The training yielded immediate results, with the approval rate for special work permits across various projects rising from 78% to 100%. Zhao Xinké, the security manager for the Iraq project, praised it, saying: “This not only resolved the challenges on site but also established a bridge for safety communication across projects.” ”