Safety first

By Diana Milne, Editor

Despite the fact that oil and gas companies are facing mounting pressure to reduce fatalities hundreds of their workers are killed every year. Diana Milne meets Charles Bowen, head of the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers to find out why.

As oil and gas companies face increasing pressure to raise their safety standards, the OGP is working to expose the truth about the real dangers threatening workers in the industry. Its research on the subject makes surprising reading – revealing that commonly held beliefs about the biggest safety hazards in the oil and gas industry are in fact wrong, as OGP executive director Charles Bowen testifies. Describing the results of the latest research carried out by the organisation, he reveals that in fact vehicle incidents were the biggest hazards facing oil and gas workers in 2007: “For 2007, the OGP report recorded 2.91 billion hours worked in the upstream industry, covering the activities of 38 companies in 93 countries.The data showed that the largest causes of fatalities in upstream operations were vehicle incidents. These accounted for 29.9% of deaths recorded – a figure consistent with =performance throughout most of the previous decade.”

Bowen went on to say that as a result of its findings, the OGP had published a report on Land Transportation Recommended Safety Practice. He acknowledges that raising oil and gas companies’ health and safety records is still a work in practice – despite figures showing improvements in safety standards in 2007. According to the OGP’s annual safety report, there was a “marked improvement” in upstream industry safety performance in 2007. Although a total of 87 people were killed in incidents relating to upstream activities, that represented 28 fewer fatalities than in the previous year.

The fatal accident rate (FAR) was 3.0 deaths per 100 million hours worked a 24% improvement over 2006’s FAR. There was an even more significant drop in the frequency of lost time injuries (LTIFs) which decreased by a third from 0.99 per million hours worked in 2006 to 0.66 in 2007. Bowen describes these results as “encouraging” but says they indicate a need to raise standards further: “Encouraging though these improvements are, they should be seen within the broader context of a decade’s performance. Though the overall trend is positive, recent figures suggest the industry has reached something of a safety plateau. The challenge ahead is to achieve a significant and sustainable safety improvement.”

Before it can reach this goal however the industry faces big challenges, he goes on to say, citing the pressure on companies to dig deeper as hydrocarbons diminish as creating major safety issues. These include marine risks, as companies explore deeper underwater for new sources of oil, and risks incurred from working in harsh climatic conditions such as the Arctic: “The deeper the industry has to go, the greater the heat and pressure of oil and gas deposits. This naturally has safety implications. So does the location of production facilities, which are increasingly to be found offshore in deep water,” says Bowen. “Greater water depths introduce, by definition, additional marine risks. Looking ahead, as the upstream industry moves its search to areas such as the Arctic, operations in severe cold will create new safety challenges for equipment and personnel.”

Another challenge facing the industry is the fact that it is ageing – both in terms of personnel and facilities. Bowen says there is an urgent need to recruit skilled personnel to replace those that have reached retirement age, taking valued skills and experience away with them: “The upstream industry is aging in terms of people and the facilities they operate. These are global issue, as true for NOCs as it is for IOCCs. The cyclical nature of the industry over the last 30 years has led to a particularly large proportion of experienced people arriving at retirement age at the present time. This implies a massive loss of knowledge and experience in an industry which is seeing high levels of activity. Ensuring that this knowledge and experience is not lost remains a major challenge for the industry.”

He goes on to say that aging equipment and facilities are also posing a significant threat to oil and gas workers. “Older assets such as production installations, platforms and offloading facilities are also subject to wear and stress. That is why asset integrity is a priority issue for OGP, involving a wide range of disciplines including design, construction, production, maintenance and safety engineering.”

According to Bowen there is no consistent difference between the safety standards employed by national oil companies or independent oil companies – both he says face the challenge of encouraging the development of a safety culture among their staff: “There is no general rule about which is safer. Much more relevant is the safety attitude that prevails in the local culture as well as the wider corporate culture. The challenge for all companies is to develop the right safety culture, and to ensure that it applies across all its sites. One should never underestimate the influence of a local manager who may have a very positive effect, or the opposite.”

But while staff with the right attitude can make a difference to a company’s safety record – successful safety performance relies on a combination of high tech solutions, behaviour and physical barriers, says Bowen who stresses that there is no silver bullet to solve all safety issues:“Improved control and detection systems improve safety within our industry, but we should not underestimate the human element, nor the basic barriers such as personal safety equipment. For example, cars have become much safer, with better brakes, ABS, steering, tyres etc. Fatalities have been reduced with safety belts, airbags and crumple zones. Key to safety however is the driver’s behaviour.”

In terms of what the OGP can do to further encourage oil and gas companies to raise their safety standards Bowen acknowledges the need for it not just to produce historical data on incidents logged by companies, but to publish information that will predict future trends and enable companies to stay one step ahead of potential problems: “Traditionally, the industry has concentrated on historic performance data, such as the annual safety performance indicators report produced by OGP. Essential though this information is to create benchmarks and targets, the challenge now is to create leading (rather than lagging) indicators that actually give warning of potential problems and can be used to influence future performance in the areas of health and safety.”

And with the pressures on oil companies showing no sign of abating, anticipating the increased threats they will face from digging deeper in ever more remote parts of the world will be the only way for the OGP to ensure a sustained reduction in fatalities in its next annual safety report.