Abstract Working with new drill crews and drilling rigs brings many challenges for operators, particularly related to safety. Realising this, Maersk Oil took the decision to incorporate a new behavioural safety programme, Incident-free (IF), within its on-boarding process for rigs. The mobilisation of a work over rig in 2012 provided the opportunity to test its applicability pro actively before the rig stared to operate. Incident-free is not considered an HSE process, but a basic value requiring a change of mindset. This meant that for IF to be embedded into the organisation, buy-in was needed from top management to junior crew, Operator and Contractors. Workshops were held with both operator and contractor management, to align the two and to build a strong leadership. Leaders then demonstrated their own IF commitment by running 1-Day Commitment Workshops wit all supervisors and crews, to teach the values of IF – namely ‘taking personal responsibility for their own safety and that of others’. Results show that IF has had a positive impact safety behaviour, with greater participation in safety observations and interventions from both contractor and service company staff and with more ownership of resolving safety issues. IF has been instrumental in increasing the usage and value of the STOP card system on-board, helping to reduce the number of Near Misses and High Potential (HiPo) incidents. As IF empowers people, it has also brought about extra dialogue and thus new ideas which also have resulted in cost saving and/or greater efficiency in the way work is done. The pre mobilisation Incident-Free program has successfully been applied to 5 rig start ups since 2012 and is now being implemented as early as the rig selection process for new rigs and it forms a key role in the safe mobilisation of rigs for Maersk Oil Qatar.