Health and Safety Performance of the Global E&P Industry 2000

Abstract

Abstract The International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (OGP) has been reporting the safety performance on behalf of the upstream oil and gas industry since 1985. Over that period there has been a significant reduction in the fatal accident rate (FAR) and improvements in the lost time injury frequency (LTIF). In an effort to protect and improve the health of its personnel, the industry has, for the first time, started to collect more detailed occupational illness data from its operations around the world. This paper presents the results from the year 2000 occupational injury and illness data collection programmes. The main database for this period represents over 1.6 billion hours worked, an increase of 36% compared to the 1999 dataset. Thirty-nine companies contributed safety performance data, from operations in 71 countries. Eight organisations responded to the call for occupational illness information, providing 235 million workhours of data. It is shown that although there has been an increase in the total number of reported fatalities, the FAR remains similar to previous years due to the increase in the number of working hours reported. The LTIF has continued to show improvements compared to previous years, with the year 2000 data showing the lowest value recorded to date. The most common types of incident leading to fatalities were vehicle related incidents, and persons being struck by moving or falling objects. The first year of collecting detailed occupational health data has highlighted a number of problems which will need to be addressed in order to improve on the consistency and volume of this potentially valuable dataset. Introduction The International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (OGP) has, since 1985, been collecting and reporting the safety performance on behalf of the upstream oil and gas industry through its annual publication 'Safety Performance of the Global E&P Industry' [1]. This series of reports serves a range of purposes. Firstly, it presents to the widest audience possible how the industry has performed, year on year, on a range of key safety measures. Secondly, it allows E&P organisations to benchmark their performance against that of their peers. Thirdly, it assists the industry to identify areas where it may need to concentrate effort (eg driving related incidents). Occupational Injury Data. In the past, the main focus has been on collecting and reporting accurate occupational injury data and statistics. This has, in part, been driven by the relative ease with which injury related data can be collected and analysed, and the industry's, regulators' and public's desire to use such statistics as the primary vehicle for measuring the safety performance of the industry. Over the years standard definitions of the main parameters which need to be reported have been developed. This has helped to minimise problems associated with organisations reporting injury related data based on a range of definitions.