Safety
Safety monitoring on maintenance shutdown, Big Lake satellite, Cooper Basin.
Santos strives for the highest standard of occupational health and safety and is committed to a workplace that is free from injuries.
Employees and contractors have specific responsibilities for observing and maintaining a safe working environment, as detailed in the Health and Safety Vision and Policy (see below). Feedback, discussion, hazard analysis, auditing and drills are used to continually improve procedures and practices.
The company-wide Environment, Health and Safety Management System (EHSMS) provides a structured framework for effective environmental and safety practice across all of Santos’ activities and operations.
The system, based on the ISO 14001 and AS 4801 standards, has been designed to ensure consistent standards for all employees and contractors. It incorporates industry best practice and includes 17 management standards and more than 30 hazard standards.
Safety performance
Santos investigates and reports all accidents, near misses and hazards. The primary index used to measure safety performance is the Total Recordable Case Frequency Rate (TRCFR), which is defined as the number of recordable cases (medical treatment and lost time injuries) per million hours worked for Santos employees and contractors. Performance for the past five years is shown in the graph.
In 2011, Santos recorded no high-impact process safety incidents and a total recordable case frequency rate (TRCFR) of 3.3 per million hours worked, equalling the record rate achieved in 2010. It is notable that this sustained performance was achieved despite a significant 44% increase in employee and contractor work hours in 2011.
Our average TRCFR for the past three years is 3.4, a step down from an average of 5.8 for the three years prior to that – a 41% step change improvement.
Health and Safety Policy
Our Health and Safety Vision: ‘We all go home from work without injury or illness’
We believe that:
- No business objective will take priority over health and safety.
- All injuries and incidents are preventable.
- No task is so important or urgent that it cannot be done safely.
- Without diminishing management’s obligations, the responsibility and accountability for health and safety rests with every individual.
At Santos we are committed to conducting our business in a manner that prevents injury or illness to employees, contractors, customers and the public who may be affected by our work activities. We encourage best practice in health and safety management within this wider Santos community.
To achieve this we will:
- Maintain and continually improve our company-wide Environment, Health and Safety Management System (EHSMS).
- Provide a balanced focus on the management of health and wellbeing, personnel and process safety.
- Proactively pursue the identification of all hazards and eliminate or, if not possible, manage the risk to as low as reasonably practicable.
- Consult with and promote active participation of employees in the management of their own and others’ health, wellbeing and safety.
- Require that companies providing contract services to Santos manage their health and safety in line with this policy.
- Provide resources to achieve a systematic approach to health, personnel safety and process safety management to ensure continual performance improvement.
- Identify performance measures, set improvement targets, measure and report performance at all levels.
- As a minimum comply with relevant legal and other requirements.
- Develop a culture where all employees and contractors are constantly aware of safety hazards around them and act accordingly at and away from work.
- Include health and safety performance in the appraisal of employees and contractors and recognise accordingly.
- Steward the health and safety performance of joint venture activities operated by others.
David Knox
Chief Executive Officer & Managing Director