What are the challenges?
Our employees, contractors, clients and neighbours shall know that we operate safely. If we cannot demonstrate that we focus on safety in our day-to-day activities, we cannot be sure of retaining our legitimacy to operate.
Our goal is to be among the industry leaders in HSE. We recognise the importance of complying with industry requirements, understanding the risks and running quality operations. We also acknowledge that we have to make further improvements to achieve this ambition. (See "Fines, Sanctions and Accidents" for a description of accidents that occurred last year.)
We have identified the following key areas for improvement in safety measures:
- Management of, and compliance with, our safety standards.
- Understanding and managing our risks.
- Simplification of procedures and work processes.
- Technical Integrity at our facilities.
What are we doing?
We firmly believe that all accidents can be prevented, and our goal remains zero harm. We have a strong focus on continuous improvement.
In order to meet our goal of improving safety results, we hold a large number of training sessions in compliance and risk management. We are confident in our focus areas, and we will strive hard to improve within them in the years ahead.
Major organisational changes have been planned and implemented in a safe manner, with people being integrated into one common culture. For our North Sea operations, strong cooperation between offshore units, onshore support functions and management is essential. The new organisational model has now been implemented and the results are being seen. We must think safety in the whole value chain, from planning to the execution of work. The use of risk management and compliance is in focus, and compensatory measures are continuously implemented in order to reduce the chance of accidents.
Our compliance programme will focus on the integration of our values in all activities, and on compliance with internal and external requirements. Where requirements cannot be met, the risk will be identified and controlled as part of the systematic handling of non-conformities.
We use our experience from our home operations to improve our international performance by applying the same governance system with local adjustments to fit local environment and culture.
What have we achieved?
Our monitoring of technical safety conditions and our safe behaviour programme have been widely recognised, and our safety KPIs were reached in 2009. However, we will strive harder in order to be among the best in relation to safe work in our industry.
