CALGARY, Alta. — The Canadian Petroleum Products Institute honoured the best in the West at its Fuel Carrier Safety Awards (Western Division) luncheon in Calgary on Apr. 26. 

Taking top prize as Best Overall Carrier was Coquitlam-based carrier Wheeler Transport, which also won the Reduced Product Mixes Improvement award.

The seventh annual awards presentation also recognized Edmonton’s Westcan Bulk Transport with a pair of honours.

John Skowronski, CPPI director and event host/presenter, told the guests assembled that it’s key for his organization to recognize carriers for safe performance over the past year. He pointed out that the awards aren’t meant necessarily to honour the absolutely best performers, but “the best improvement over the past year,” and that their focus is on “the reduction of incidents as well as really trying to add some recognition to the guys who made this happen – the drivers who are out there every day.”

The awards committee was made up of Skowronski, Heinz Nagel of Husky Energy, Shell Canada’s Peter Penstone, and Perry Covillo of Suncor Energy. “We meet in the first quarter of the year and use objective, numerical and rational data for the key performance awards,” Skowronski said.

Criteria for eligibility include a company being a contracted carrier (not a branded one), and carriers need to have hauled a minimum number of loads over a couple of years. “You can’t be a one hit wonder,” as Skowronski put it. The nomination has to come from a CPPI member company as well.

“For the Improvement awards, we look at mixes, we look at spills, vehicle accidents and personal injuries,” Skowronski said, noting they weren’t able to award a personal injury award this year. In the case of the Best Overall award – which, strangely enough, has nothing to do with clothing – a subjective element is also taken into account that Skowronski said incorporates “input from a specific CPPI member who may nominate a carrier, but who also gets acknowledgement from other members that the nominated carrier is worthy of the award.”

The awards were given out as follows: Improvement award for reduced product mixes, Wheeler Transport; Improvement award for reduced product spills, Westcan Bulk Transport; Improvement award for reduced vehicle accidents, Westcan Bulk Transport; and the award for best overall carrier who excelled in all safety performance areas, Wheeler Transport.

These carriers contributed to what the CPPI says were over 70,000 deliveries in 2011 on behalf of member companies in western Canada.