European downstream oil industry safety performance statistical summary of reported incidents – 1998

Report no. 1/99: This report is the fifth by CONCAWE reviewing the safety performance of the downstream oil industry in Europe. The area of coverage is primarily the EU, EEA and Hungary, but for some companies the data for other European countries such as Poland, Czech Republic, Turkey, etc. is included. The report includes the results of 27companies which together represent over 90% of the oil refining capacity in the region.This is the same number as last year but includes one company reporting for the first time. This was compensated by the merger of two companies who this year returned a combined report. Of the 27 companies, 21 gave data for both contractors and employees. It is therefore a representative sample of the industry.

However, as the data for some companies is incomplete, all results are quoted as frequencies. The data covers the year 1998 and is compared with the averages for the five year period 1993 to 1997. Overall, the reported hours worked by company staff and contractors combined were about 470 million with an average Lost Workday Injury Frequency (LWIF) of 4.5 which is very similar to those reported in previous years which ranged from 4.0 to 4.7, and with the average for the years 1993 to 1997 of 4.5.However, it is lower than for any of the previous year’s figures apart from 1994 when only 17 companies reported.

A range of other measures of safety performance are also reported. The responsible management of safety in the oil industry has resulted in a low level of accidents compared to other industries in Europe despite the intrinsic hazards of the materials handled and the operations carried out. In addition, nearly all the fatalities reported were unconnected with these hazardous properties and mainly resulted from road accidents and criminal actions. In general, the safety performance for the companies reporting was similar (and if anything, slightly better) in 1998 to the performance reported previously for 1993 to 1997.