The Safety Innovations Award recognises excellence in innovative technology and products developed in the UK which contribute to offshore safety. In particular, it looks at how they contribute to the overall objective of improving individual, plant or operational safety in the offshore energy sector, oil and gas and all forms of renewables.

The Survitec Group developed two very different systems last year for its offshore energy markets - the Survitec Offshore Mass Evacuation System (MES) which provides the offshore industry with a significantly improved evacuation system, and the Category A Emergency Breathing System (Cat A EBS) for helicopter transit passengers.

Developed in the first instance for use in the North Sea, both systems have scope for global application.

Survitec's European managing director Greg Allanach said the systems brought significant safety improvements to the offshore industry's safety equipment.

"Safety of the personnel who work offshore in what can often be a harsh and challenging environment is paramount in the industry and as a company we are committed to looking at how we can continue to enhance and improve safety and survival systems," he said.

The MES is the only system in the market which can be fully deployed in under a minute. It can evacuate up to 150 people at a time from topside on an offshore installation to sea-level via a fully enclosed fire and smoke protected escape chute, which leads to a single capacity life raft.

Survitec says its Offshore MES system is 100% automatically inflated requiring no personnel intervention and provides direct entry into the life raft via a unique revolving landing podium - providing a fully enclosed evacuation process and protecting personnel from the elements and the open sea at all times.

This, Survitec says, is the advantage the Offshore MES system has over anything else on the market.

The company also developed the Cat A EBS in response to the CAA Helicopter Safety Review which followed the UK government's Transport Select Committee inquiry into helicopter safety at the end of 2013 after a fatal crash in the waters off Shetland.

The requirement for a Cat EBS, which would be mandatory for all personnel travelling offshore from the UK, was one of 70 actions and recommendations contained in the report.

Survitec worked closely with the oil and gas industry to develop the system within a very tight timescale.