Although oil companies call their safety programs by different names, operators agree that safety must come first, and that drilling contractors and operators can help one another improve safety.
ExxonMobil Corp. calls its safety program “Nobody gets hurt,” while ConocoPhillips labels it “Journey to Zero,” and Chevron Corp., “Incident-free Operations,” speakers told a health, safety, environment, and training conference in Houston sponsored by the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC).
“We are so closely aligned on this one aspect that you lose track of who works for which company,” David R. Anglin, ExxonMobil Development Co. global drilling manager, said during a Feb. 5 panel discussion.
The other panelists were Glenn D. Schaaf, ConocoPhillips operations services manager, Lower 48, and Jeff Smith, drilling and completions manager for the Chevron Midcontinent-Alaska business unit.
Anglin said safety performance is the first thing he reviews daily. He said employees throughout an entire company must be held as accountable to a safety culture as the workers on the rig floor.
“The near-miss could have been an accident,” Anglin said, adding that he believes in studying near-miss incidents and to take the conclusions seriously in ongoing efforts to make sure nobody gets hurt.
Safety cost cheaper
Schaaf emphasized, “Safety is not about statistics but about people caring for each other.” He urged industry to implement better employee mentoring programs and “to invest in new technologies to take people out of harm’s way…. At the end of the day, safety is actually cheap compared to what an accident costs contractors and oil companies.”
Anglin agreed, saying ExxonMobil is willing to spend whatever it takes to achieve safer working conditions.
Chevron’s Smith said safe operations translate into less missed production time, a key performance measure for oil companies. In addition, equipment tends to last longer when safety is observed, he said. “At the end of the day, our overall rig costs are down” as a result of technology and safety upgrades to rig fleets, Smith said.
Better equipment
IADC Chairman John Lindsay, Helmerich & Payne International Drilling Co. executive vice-president for US and international operations, agreed that the use of better equipment can reduce risks.
For instance, he said, the use of iron roughnecks eliminates the number of people handling tongs. Iron roughnecks save fingers and also make the industry more attractive to young people considering a job on the rig floor, Lindsay said.
The use of hydraulic catwalks helps prevent dropped objects, which is a high risk issue, Lindsay said.
IADC administers an accident statistics program (ASP) in which members voluntarily submit monthly statistics on injury accidents and illnesses within specified levels of severity. IADC compiles the results.
Lindsay said it’s estimated that 60-70% of US land rigs participate in ASP. Consequently, IADC estimates that more than 2,000 drilling contractor injuries were not posted in ASP results. ASP statistics show an average of 12 fatalities/year for the last 12 years, he said. “Fatalities are something we’ve just got to get out of our business,” Lindsay said.
ASP participants report each work-related, recordable injury or illness only in the following categories: fatality, lost-time incident, days away from work case, restricted work case, and medical treatment.
First-aid cases, defined as treatment of minor scratches, cuts, burns, splinters, etc., are not reported.