Section
5
Safety
P
roject safety advisors launched an enhanced accident prevention program
in the second quarter — expanding on the project’s behavior-based safety
approach emphasizing individual involvement and responsibility for safety.
•
The launch of the enhanced safety program arrived at an important
moment, following two accidents earlier in the year that resulted in four
lost time injuries.
•
Although the project’s overall safety record remains well ahead of industry
benchmarks, the accidents contributed to a decline in the project’s overall
safety performance statistics.
•
The drilling operation continues to maintain its safety record of no lost time
incidents since project development began in 2000 — 24.6 million work
hours without a major on the job accident.
Behavior-Based Safety Practices: Program Launch
The Loss Prevention System introduced during the second quarter
emphasizes behavior based safety principles. The program launch
included mandatory classroom training for employees and contractors
so they can methodically spread the safety techniques throughout the
organization through coaching and mentoring. The program focuses
on the study of root causes of near misses and incidents so that
underlying behavior can be improved, going beyond symptoms and
circumstances, making the point that everyone in the organization
shares ownership of safety performance.
23
Safety
Behavior-Based Safety Practices: Taking it to the Field
Behavior-based safety practices include an array of basic tools that take the concept to the field in a
practical yet methodical manner. This pipe laying crew conducts a “tool box” team safety meeting (top)
before start of work, including a review of the Job Safety Analysis written in advance for the assignment.
Each person signs off on the job site work permit (bottom right), taking personal responsibility for the Job
Safety Analysis, acknowledging they have thought ahead about the hazards of the work and how to
mitigate them. In addition, and this is a key component of behavior-based safety, workers are trained to
do their own last minute risk assessment just before starting their individual tasks. In this situation (bottom
left), a member of the team noticed that a team member was wearing only goggles, not the full face shield
required for sand blasting a pipe joint, and stopped the work to hand the shield to his colleague.
24
Safety
Lost Time Incidents
16 February: A rigger working for the logistics contractor was placing pipes on
a rack in a storage yard in Cameroon when he injured his thumb. An accident
cause investigation revealed issues involving lack of training, failure to follow
safety procedures and inadequate supervision. Several corrective actions have
been taken, including the hiring of new safety advisor and supervisory
personnel to strengthen safety management. Operational procedures and
safety procedures have been improved at the site and an audit of the
contractor’s overall safety procedures has been conducted.
25 February: Three of the four people on board a pickup truck operated by a
security contractor were injured when the truck rolled over while on night
shift patrol in the Komé oilfield. The accident investigation identified a failure
to follow minimum rest time requirements and fatigue during a night shift as
root causes of the accident. Corrective actions included a safety stand down
from work while remedial safety training was conducted with security
contractor personnel. Management of the contractor was counseled regarding
failure to follow safety procedures. Some patrol responsibilities were switched
to another contractor with a better safety record and vehicle patrol procedures
and systems were improved.
Safety Statistics
Recordable Incident Rate — Below Industry Benchmarks
(Total Recordable Incidents per 200,000 Work Hours)
1.3
1.40
1.24
1.20
1.03
0.89
Recordable Incident Rate
1.00
0.74
0.80
0.72
Industry Benchmark
0.68
0.60
0.60
0.40
0.39
0.20
0.37
0.48
0.44
0.35
0.35
0.16
0.23
2007
2008
0.00
Project
to Date
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
Last 12
Months
The Recordable Incident Rate measures overall safety performance by capturing even minor
injury accidents. Although the rate degraded in the first half of 2009, project workers kept
their historically low Recordable Incident Rate at a level well below the average rate of the
petroleum industry as a whole. The 12 month rolling rate of 0.35 incidents per 200,000
working hours is about two times better than the latest available U.S. petroleum industry
average of 0.68 (based on reports from participating companies to the American Petroleum
Institute).
25
Safety
On-the-Job Injuries (OSHA Reportables)
3rd Qtr
2008
0
0
1
4
26
4th Qtr
2008
0
1
0
3
24
1st Qtr
2009
0
4
0
10
29
2nd Qtr
2009
0
0
1
8
16
Last 12
Months
0
5
2
25
95
Project
(Since 2000)
4
27
131
277
2622
Worker Hours (thousands)
4623
4478
4606
4810
18517
224582
Trend Analysis
Recordable Incident Rate
Lost Time Incident Rate
0.22
0.00
0.18
0.04
0.61
0.17
0.37
0.00
0.35
0.05
0.39
0.02
Fatalities
Lost Time
Restricted Work
Medical Treatment Required
First Aid Cases
These project safety statistics are for EEPCI, TOTCO, COTCO, other affiliates working for the project and their respective contractors.
They include incidents involving a location, property or activities owned, controlled or supervised by those entities.
Traffic Safety Tally
Traffic Accidents
3rd Qtr
2008
11
4th Qtr
2008
9
1st Qtr
2009
8
2nd Qtr
2009
6
Last 12
Months
34
Project
(Since 2000)
822
Includes all project vehicle traffic incidents - minor and major vehicle damage accidents plus injury accidents.
Traffic Accident Count
140
136
Number of Motor Vehicle Accidents
120
109
97
100
76
80
58
60
42
40
32
34
20
0
2002
2003
2004
2005
2006
2007
2008 12 Mos
The project’s annual vehicle accident count has been cut dramatically over the last seven years.
The count of 34 for the last four quarters is a reduction to less than one-fourth the annual level in
2002 during the construction phase. In addition, the vehicle accident rate per million kilometers
has been cut from 4.0 in 2005 to 1.2 midway through 2009. The improvement comes from a
campaign of rigorous accident prevention including cause investigations, defensive driving
training, vehicle and driver spot checks, and disciplinary action.
26
Safety
Context:
Standards for
Safety Reporting
Measuring Safety Performance
The tabulation and statistical analysis of accident reports plays a crucial role in
accident prevention efforts for large industrial projects like the
Chad/Cameroon Development Project.
•
Like many other companies, ExxonMobil has selected the widely
recognized OSHA guidelines as a standard for measuring safety
performance worldwide. Thus, statistics from the project can be compared
to those from other locations.
•
OSHA guidelines are also widely used by many other oil companies and a
number of similar industries, thus providing a further source of
benchmarks for measuring the project’s safety performance.
In addition to worldwide application of the stringent OSHA guidelines, Esso
also complies with all local requirements for compiling and reporting
accidents and accident statistics that may be in force in the countries where it
operates. However, the governments of Chad and Cameroon have not adopted
any detailed standards for accident recording and reporting.
Transparency of Results
Accident reporting by the project in Chad and Cameroon is consistent with,
and in some cases superior to, transparency practices followed in most
industrialized nations.
•
All major accidents, including ones that fall outside the OSHA accident
reporting guidelines, are immediately reported to local authorities for
investigation. Local law enforcement authorities generally are on the scene
shortly after a major accident, and the project cooperates fully in all police
investigations. Thus, the project’s reporting of accidents is much the same
as in the United States and many other countries, where police, fire or
other emergency agencies are called to major accident scenes.
•
In addition, the project’s OSHA-based safety performance statistics are
published in these Project Update reports. As indicated in the Preface, the
reports are posted on the Internet (www.essochad.com) and hundreds of
printed copies are distributed to a wide array of stakeholders, including
NGOs, in the two host countries and in the international community.
27
Safety
Family Safety Day at COTCO
In Cameroon, the project held a Family Safety Day event at mid-year. At this ceremony in Douala,
employees of COTCO brought their spouses and children (top left) to an afternoon of speeches (top
right), skits (middle right) and contests (bottom left) — all with the message that the same principles that
help make the work place safe can be applied at home as well. Family members received a newly created
Off the Job Safety Hand Book (bottom right) to help them to learn about how to be safe at home.
28