Overall, the 1996 European downstream safety performance is the same as that of the last 3 years. The 1996 lost-workday injury frequency (LWIF) was 4.7 compared to 4.6 in 1995.
These figures are based on an annual report from Concawe, Brussels (Conservation of Clean Air & Water, Europe), the oil companies' European organization for environmental and health protection. Figures for 1996 are the most recently compiled.
Categories
The 28 member companies that responded to Concawe's survey represent over 90% of the Western European refining capacity.Fig. 1 [45,084 bytes] summarizes the old and new data. The 1996 overall fatal-accident rate (FAR) was 3.3 fatalities/100 million hr worked, less than that in many other industries. Although safety performance is good, it has been steady for several years and could be better.
LWIF is the number of lost-workday injuries (LWIs)/million hr worked.
The all-injury frequency (AIF) records the sum of the number of fatalities, of restricted work injuries (RWIs), of medical treatment cases (MTCs), and of LWIs divided by million hr worked. The AIF was 8.0 in 1993, 8.6 in 1994, 11.2 in 1995, and 10.8 in 1996.
Lost-workday injury severity (LWI severity) is the total number of lost workdays (as a result of injuries) divided by the number of LWIs. LWI severity has steadily fallen over the years: 27.4 days in 1993, 24.7 days in 1994, 24.0 days in 1995, and 19.5 days in 1996.
Reported 1996 data
Table 1 [80,382 bytes] breaks down 1996 survey results by area (operations and marketing) and by workers (employees and contractors).In 1996, contractors achieved a better LWIF in the marketing area (2.6) than company employees (4.9). In the operations area, however, the contractors' LWIF (8.3) was more than twice as high as that of employees (3.9).
The total 1996 LWIF for contractors was 5.1 and that for company workers was 4.5.
There has been a steady reduction in the road accident rate (RAR) reported since 1993. The RAR was 3.9 in 1993, 3.2 in 1994, 2.7 in 1995, and 2.0 in 1996.
The RAR is expressed as the number of accidents/million km traveled (in cars driven on business).
U.S. and industry comparisons
Western Europe's downstream safety performance is comparable with that of the U.S. and with that of the exploration and production industry (Table 2 [85,456 bytes]).The 1996 LWIF for company employees in refining operations was 3.9, compared to 2.6 in the U.S. The 1996 LWIF for the European upstream industry was 3.7.
The 1996 LWI severity for company employees in operations, however, was higher in the U.S. than in Europe. European downstream workers lost 27.5 workdays per each LWI. The U.S, on the other hand, lost 34.5 workdays per each LWI.
API records the U.S. safety record for only employees, not contractors. The E&P Forum collects statistics for the international upstream oil industry.
Copyright 1998 Oil & Gas Journal. All Rights Reserved.
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