Last year, according to reports filed by 45 International Associaton of Oil and Gas Producers (IOGP) member companies, the fatal accident rate associated with global upstream operations fell by 36% from the previous year. The number of fatalities decreased from 50 in 2016 to 33 in 2017. This fall occurred during a time when the number of reported work hours increased by 4%. While the number of fatalities was down, the number of fatal incidents increased from 29 in 2016 to 30 in 2017.
Those were among the main findings of IOGP’s flagship data report: the annual Safety Performance Indicators for 2017, published on 19 June. It records the best performance since the association began collecting safety incident data from members in 1985. Today, IOGP’s safety database is the industry’s largest. Of the 33 fatalities reported, seven were related to company personnel; 26 were contractor-related.
Analysis of the 30 fatal incident descriptions (accounting for the 33 fatalities) showed that 87% reported in 2017 related to the IOGP Life-Saving Rules published in March 2012.
A look at the top three causes of the fatal incidents shows that there has been no change since IOGP first began collecting such details in 2010. Then, as now, they involved:
- Organizational inadequacy in identifying hazards or assessing risk
- Personal inattention, lack of awareness, improper decisionmaking, or lack of judgment
- Inadequate work standards or procedures
Looking at personal injury performance, the new report shows that the total recordable injury rate decreased by 7% compared with 2016 results. The 2017 lost-time-injury frequency was virtually unchanged with the previous year.
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