The Kish Shah Award for outstanding contributions to the advancement of health, safety, environmental and security aspects of the nitrogen fertiliser industry
Supporting the global fertiliser production industry
The IFS is delighted to be involved with, and supporting, the new Kish Shah Award for an outstanding contribution to the advancement of health, safety, environment and security aspects of industrial operations concerning N fertilisers. Conceived and funded by Kish Shah MBE, this new award is worth £2,000 to the recipient. It will be awarded on a judgemental basis once every two years, for a period of ten years, with the first prize being awarded in 2024.
Recipients will have made, or be making, outstanding contributions to good practice in SHES (safety, health, environment and security) aspects of the fertiliser industry. Candidates will be evaluated by Council members of the International Fertiliser Society, working with Kish Shah. Accordingly, people involved in this area are invited to send a description of their contribution to the IFS Secretary.
Kish Shah MBE commented: “I am in the twilight of my career working in fertiliser safety. I have derived many benefits from this, and now I want to give something back to the industry that I know so well. SHES is a crucial aspect of the industry, that does not always receive the attention and priority that it deserves. So this is my way of helping to promote its importance and encourage people working in it to gain the recognition that they deserve. I hope that practitioners will be motivated to use this award to show the world what they have achieved.”
The winner of the inaugural Kish Shah Award
We are delighted to announce that the inaugural recipient of the Kish Shah Award is Vincent Duponchel, Director – Process Safety at Yara International. As well as driving forward SHES good practice within Yara, Vincent has written four very interesting papers for the AICHE Ammonia Safety Conference, challenging established industry practices in the field of safety. At the 2024 IFS Conference he will be presenting a paper entitled ‘Fertiliser production and process safety: major PS challenges caused by a less stable world’.
Kish Shah MBE
Kish is a Chemical Engineer, a Fellow of the Institution of Chemical Engineers (UK) and a Chartered Engineer. He worked for more than 30 years with ICI and Terra Nitrogen in their ammonium nitrate-based fertiliser business. He left Terra as Technical Director in 2003 and since then has been working as a consultant.
Kish has actively participated in the activities of various trade associations such as Fertilizers Europe, European Chemical Industries Association (CEFIC) and UK’s fertilizer industry association, AIC. For many years he has represented the fertiliser industry on various United Nations’ committees in Geneva and at the International Maritime Organization (IMO), London.
He has also held the positions of President and Vice-President of the International Fertiliser Society. He has published many technical papers on various aspects of ammonium nitrate and has very recently published a comprehensive book on AN operations and safety. He is regarded as a leading international expert on AN safety.
He was honoured with an award of an MBE (Member of the British Empire) by Her Majesty the Queen for his services to fertiliser industry in the safety field.