BP 2012 Annual Report Download - page 52

Business review: BP in more depth
BP Annual Report and Form 20-F 2012
50
Loss of primary containment and oil spills (excluding Deepwater
Horizon oil spill in respect of 2010 volume)
2012 2011 2010
Loss of primary containment – number of all
incidentsa292 361 418
Loss of primary containment – number of oil
spillsb204 228 261
Number of oil spills to land and water 102 102 142
Volume of oil spilled (thousand litres) 801 556 1,719
Volume of oil unrecovered (thousand litres) 320 281 758
a Does not include either small or non-hazardous releases.
b Number of spills greater than or equal to one barrel (159 litres, 42 US gallons).
Process safety
We monitor the number of process safety events occurring across our
operations using the American Petroleum Institute (API) RP-754 standard.
Introduced in 2010 it sets out process safety indicators, organized into
different tiers and is used as the basis for our internal and external process
safety reporting. API tier 1 process safety events are the loss of primary
containment from a process of greatest consequence – causing harm to a
member of the workforce or costly damage to equipment, or exceeding
defined quantities. API tier 2 process safety events are loss of primary
containment, from a process, of lesser consequence. Forty-three tier 1
process safety events were reported in BP in 2012, compared with 74 in
2011. This is our first year reporting API tier 2 safety events externally.
Personal safety
BP reports publicly on its personal safety performance according to
standard industry metrics.
Personal safety performance
2012 2011 2010
Recordable injury frequency (group) –
incidents per 200,000 hours worked 0.35 0.36 0.61
Days away from work case frequencya (group) –
incidents per 200,000 hours worked 0.076 0.090 0.193
a Incidents that resulted in an injury where a person is unable to work for a day (shift) or more.
Working with partners and contractors
BP, like our industry peers, rarely works in isolation – we need to work
with suppliers, contractors and partners to carry out our operations. In
2012, 55% of the 402 million hours worked by BP were carried out by
contractors.
Our ability to be a safe and responsible operator depends in part on the
conduct of our suppliers, contractors and partners. We address this in a
variety of ways, from training and dialogue to requiring adherence to
operational standards through legally binding agreements.
Our OMS is a group-wide framework designed to provide business-
specific requirements and practices, including for working with
contractors and our operations are obliged to plan and execute actions to
reach conformance with OMS on contractor management. OMS is also
designed to drive continuous improvement, including how BP businesses
continue to work towards full conformance with the elements relevant to
working with contractors.
In 2012 we prepared guidance for conformance with OMS, where it
relates to working with contractors, in order to support the accountable
line organizations. We intend to field test this in 2013.
We expect our contractors to comply with legal requirements and to
operate consistently with the principles of our code of conduct when they
work on our behalf. The objective is to provide assurance that goods,
equipment and services provided by third parties meet contractual and BP
requirements and that there is a consistent, shared understanding of
responsibilities.
Following the Deepwater Horizon incident, we undertook an in-depth
review of contractor management practices, with the aim of documenting
and learning from the latest proven practices throughout BP and across a
number of sectors and industries that use contractors in potentially
high-consequence activities. The review confirmed to us the value of
building long-term relationships with a limited number of contractors,
supported by shared structures and common processes.
Initially our work has focused on contracts in our upstream supply chain
involving potentially high-consequence activities. In 2012 we built on this
work to identify contracts involving potentially higher-consequence
activities across the group and bringing a consistent level of oversight to
the management of these contracts as a priority. In our global projects
organization, we have put in place global agreements with seven suppliers
for plant inspection and surveillance services, covering the work
previously undertaken by more than 60 suppliers.
The review also highlighted the importance of clearly defined
responsibilities and decision rights at every stage of each process –
including training, monitoring and auditing – as well as rigorous
qualification of suppliers, including their demonstration of the competency
of key personnel. In 2012 we focused, including through our OMS, on
practical assistance to operational line management to build competence
in this area.
In 2013, we plan to continue our work on the management of contractors
through our OMS framework and actions related to additional supplier
audits, competence testing and other programmes.
Our partners in joint ventures
We seek to work with companies that share our commitment to ethical,
safe and sustainable working practices. However, we do not control how
our co-venturers and their employees approach these issues.
Typically, our level of influence or control over a joint venture is linked to
the size of our financial stake compared with other participants. In some
joint ventures we act as the operator. Our OMS provides that where we
are the operator, and where legal and contractual arrangements allow,
OMS applies to the operations of that joint venture.
In other cases, one of our joint venture partners may be the designated
operator, or the operator may be an incorporated joint venture company
owned by BP and other companies. In those cases our OMS does not
apply as the management system to be used by the operator, but is
available to our businesses as a reference point for their engagement with
operators and co-venturers. Where BP does not have overall control of a
joint venture, we will do everything we reasonably can to make sure joint
ventures follow similar principles.