11 Oct 2011

Updates on Keppel Subic Shipyard Incident

To be attributed to Mr Mok Kim Whang, President and General Manager, Keppel Subic Shipyard

We would like to report that the six injured workers from last Friday's incident are recovering well at Our Lady of Lourdes International Medical Center at Olongapo City.  Two workers remain in the Intensive Care Unit. 

For these injured workers, we are covering their medical expenses as well as providing financial assistance to their families. We have also assigned nurses to care for them at the hospital round-the-clock, and are in regular communications with the doctors on their progress.

For the six workers who have passed away, we are covering all their funeral-related expenses and are providing their families with financial and other assistance, to help them tie over this difficult period. In addition, the management and staff of Keppel Subic Shipyard have initiated the collection of personal contributions to the families of these deceased workers. 

We are currently looking into the insurance matters for the affected workers.  More importantly, we have communicated to the immediate family members of the deceased and the injured workers that we are working on providing further financial assistance to them.

Once again, we would like to offer our heartfelt condolences to the families of the workers who have passed away.

Keppel Subic Shipyard is a responsible company and we are putting in all our efforts to manage this unfortunate incident, with our focus and priority on the affected workers and their families.

Our teams from Keppel Subic Shipyard and from our Singapore headquarters have worked hard over the last three days since the incident to conduct our internal investigations into the cause of the incident.  We are waiting to interview the injured workers who are witnesses before concluding our investigations. 

At the same time, we are cooperating fully with the relevant authorities, and have been doing so since the incident happened on 7 October 2011, on their enquiries into the incident. On the day of the incident, our main focus and priority was the injured so we may not have been immediately and fully responsive to certain sectors, including the media. We have since been fully engaging with the relevant authorities and the media. We have also written to and updated all the relevant authorities on the actions we are taking.

Based on our preliminary investigations, it appears that the stern ramp of the vessel moved while being worked on which caused the support underneath the ramp to topple.  The stern ramp had been in this position and had been safely worked on since 29 September 2011.  Some workers were on the scaffolding underneath the ramp edge and on the ramp at the time of the incident. A sister vessel was also worked on using the same support structure without any incident a few months ago

At Keppel, we always uphold safety as our top priority, and we continually review and enhance our safety systems, processes and culture.  We are committed to continue to strengthen our safety mindset at the yard through drawing useful lessons from this painful incident.

Over the years, we have worked tirelessly to enhance safety at the yard and have strived to maintain a high standard of safety. We have maintained a good safety record which the Department of Labor and Employment (DOLE) certified and recognised in July this year.

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