Equinor's safety results for 2021
Equinor’s serious incident frequency is improving at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021.
“It is encouraging to see that the work we do every day to improve safety is providing results. The number of serious incidents has never been lower than it was in 2021,” says Jannicke Nilsson, Equinor’s executive vice president for Safety, Security & Sustainability.
“Last year we sadly had a fatality on a tanker in operation for Equinor in the USA,” says Nilsson.
A cadet on the contracted tanker Roberto was found dead in the harbour basin in June after the ship had left the port near Houston. Due to unclear circumstances surrounding the death, mentioning of the incident has been postponed pending the conclusion of the investigation.
The US Coast Guard, the local police and independent investigators have performed an investigation, which concludes that the person has inadvertently fallen overboard. The investigation has found no evidence of any criminal action. Through the investigation no errors or defects on the ship have been found that entail measures.
The serious incident frequency, SIF (number of serious incidents per million hours worked), is 0.4 at the end of the fourth quarter of 2021. Most of the serious incidents are connected to dropped objects.
A total of twelve oil and gas leaks have been recorded in 2021. Oil and gas leaks are classified by the severity of the leak rate. We had a hydrogen sulphide and LPG leak at Mongstad in July 2021, which was classified as having major accident potential*, according to an internal investigation. The other leaks are of a less serious character.
As opposed to the positive serious incident trend, the personal injury trend is not improving. The total recordable incident frequency, TRIF (number of personal injuries requiring medical treatment per million hours worked), is 2.4 for 2021.
The number of serious injuries is also included in the serious incident frequency (SIF). Most cases are hand and finger injuries.
“We will reinforce the positives, but still have a job to do. Consequently, we must keep building a stronger and more uniform safety culture across our facilities and plants. We are strengthening prioritised initiatives among our own employees and external suppliers to reduce the probability of major accidents and keep our workforce safe,” says Nilsson.
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*Major accident definition: An unplanned event causing: four or more fatalities or injury/ illness cases with significant life-shortening effects and/or major impact on the environment including population of species, ecosystems, and sensitive areas and/or damage to material assets and/or production shut down, leading to major economic consequences for Equinor