Woodside and contractors—partnering for safety excellence*

Abstract

Oil and gas industry safety performance in Australia compares well with other industries. Performance of the Australian Oil and Gas Industry, however, as reported by APPEA, lags behind the average performance of the international industry, as reported by the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers (OGP). The improving trend in health and safety performance in Australia over the last ten years is continuing, but progress is slowing. This slow-down suggests that if we continue to work in the same manner as we have done in the past, we will not create the shift in performance required to match or better the international industry average.

The current structure of the industry has a number of different operating companies supported by a broad base of contractors. In 2009, contractor exposure hours accounted for 88% of the total hours worked by Woodside.

Each operator and contractor has their own approach to health and safety management.

The industry backdrop is an increase in activity driven by coal seam gas (CSG) exploitation, a number of LNG megaprojects in development in Western Australia, a significant proportion of senior personnel retiring from the industry, and a significant influx of people new to the industry to support expansion and replace retirees. This will increase demands on existing, already stretched, industry resources and could reduce our ability to develop new approaches and effectively implement them.

One of the actions taken to address this at Woodside has been to engage over 100 senior leaders in our company and the CEOs of all of our major contractors to build a commitment to change the basis upon which operator and contractor work together on health and safety issues. This has involved establishing industry sector focus groups for: drilling; exploration and geomatics; onshore project construction; offshore project construction; and, production. Each group is comprised of Woodside and contractor leadership.

Given the success of these groups in formulating and driving their own agendas for improvement, and given the strong (and quite pleasing) contractor desire for ownership, Woodside sponsorship will cease at the end of 2010.

The approach aims to create sustainable, self-governed health and safety focus groups to develop industry solutions to our industry’s health and safety challenges. The groups operate on the premise that excellence in health and safety performance is of mutual benefit and is non-competitive.