Why is this important?
Safety is of utmost importance and is part of OMV Petrom recruitment, promotion and individual performance management processes. As a high-risk industry, OMV Petrom’s operations involve hazardous substances that pose a fatality risk to employees, contractors, and neighbors.
Our commitment
Our revised Strategic commitments are to have Zero work-related fatalities and to stabilize the total recordable injury rate to below 1.0 per 1 mn hours worked.
To ensure a safe working environment for its employees and contractors, OMV Petrom adheres to the highest standards. The Group HSSE Policy, HSSE Directive and corporate regulations provide the framework for safety management. These include the standards of “HSSE Risk Management”, “Occupational Safety Management”, “Contractor HSSE Management”, “Hazardous Substance Management”, “Personnel Transportation”, “Reporting, Investigation and Classification of Incidents”, and “HSSE Audits”. Corporate regulations are sustained, whenever required, by divisional procedures, standards and local work instructions.
To monitor our safety performance, the established KPIs are reviewed on a quarterly basis by the Central Safety Steering Committee and based on the results, we define and implement improvement measures. The improvements and monitoring occur at divisional, business unit and operational site levels.
Health, Safety, Security and Environment are integral parts of OMV Petrom’s business and the long-term success depends on the continuous improvement of the quality of the activities while protecting people, the environment, assets, and reputation.
Risk management is an important part of the occupational safety system. As part of the risk management process, hazards are identified, risks are assessed, and mitigation and control measures are defined and implemented.
Risk assessments are performed or included in different processes as:
- Workplace risk assessment – an evaluation required by both legislation and the internal Risk Management Standard when work conditions change, or accidents occur
- The Permit to Work System – a formally documented process used to authorize and manage works identified as significantly hazardous by making sure all the safety measures are in place before work starts. The main part of the Safe Systems of Work is Job Safety Analysis or task risk assessment
- Management of Change (MoC) – a process applied whenever a change is introduced that could have negative or positive consequences for: human (health & safety), environment, quality and customers, financial and asset loss, reputation and media attention, and compliance (external and internal)
- Journey Management – an assessment before a trip; template and requirements mentioned in the Group Standard “Personnel Transportation”
- HSSE risk of contracts – a risk assessment conducted in the pre-awarding phase of the contracting process; the assessment is determining the level of HSSE risks associated with the contracted activities
In 2022 we continued to monitor our employees’ driving performance and Road Safety awareness via IVMS (In Vehicle Monitoring System) which was enhanced with new hardware and software capabilities (e.g., not wearing seatbelt considered in drivers’ monthly score, 2 smartphone apps supporting drivers and coordinators).
Contractors need to apply similar HSSE selection and management of their (sub)contractors, according to our Group Standard Contractor HSSE Management. The Standard describes the HSSE management throughout a contract lifecycle and it is developed according to the best practice in Oil and Gas, the IOGP Report 423 with HSSE management guidelines for working together in a contract environment.
The ISO 45001: 2018 Certification covers 60.87% of our employees in all OMV Petrom Business Divisions.
Risks are evaluated and mitigation measures are monitored within the EWRM process, documented in a Group wide database (Active Risk Management System) and reported to top management twice a year or as needed. Senior management is directly involved in the review of risks identified as a top priority.
Audits are conducted regularly on sites, based on a Group HSSE audit program, which includes audits at contractors. Inspections and site visits are performed on a regular basis by the operational HSSE organization. From all these actions, positive findings are shared within the organization to be applied in similar activities, while opportunities for improvement and nonconformities are analyzed together with the owners for identifying improvement measures and further on to establish improvement action plans and monitor their fulfilment.
We are paying more attention to improving our HSSE walks and safety walks by encouraging open dialogue during these activities. This initiative promotes the understanding of challenges in the operating fields and increases trust between the workforce and management.
Training is the most important tool for updating workers and managers about workplace hazards and controls, so they can work more safely. Training is defined in the Group Standard “HSSE Awareness and Competencies” that outlines the HSSE requirements for various categories of employees. All staff is required to comply with the company’s HSSE Policy, internal HSSE regulations and relevant legislation. For achieving this, all OMV Petrom employees receive regular training in their roles and responsibilities related to HSSE.
Information on safety alerts and lessons learned from incidents is specifically shared with the entire organization as well as with contractors through various communication channels. For example, in 2022, the two e-learning materials developed by the Group about the risk of dropped objects and the risk of working next to high-voltage power lines were made available, promoted and facilitated for access to the whole OMV Petrom organization. The safety alerts and lessons learned are the subject of analyses and debates in workshops, training and periodical meetings with contractors.
Focus on Contractors Safety
The safety of OMV Petrom contractors is just as important as the safety of our own employees. For this reason, we request contractors to work according to our standards and we check compliance during the entire lifecycle of the contracts. The Contractor HSSE Management Process begins with the HSSE requirements in the scope of work and the description of HSSE KPIs and it continues in tendering with the HSSE evaluation and capability audit, when required. Before starting the contracted work, we reinforce our expectations and requirements during kick-off meetings, HSSE induction, site specific trainings, and other joint meetings.
We continued to deliver specific training on how HSSE requirements and tools are embedded in the source-to-contract process, the learning process being enhanced in 2022 with an e-learning tool.
We continued the event series started in 2021 with two HSSE forums that gathered participants from OMV Petrom, with the main objective to build a community of experts to share HSSE experiences from these activities and strive to find and apply solutions for improvements. In terms of road safety, the focus in 2022 was on freight transportation; the main activities performed involving contractors included:
- Development of new specific leading indicators for contractors’ monitoring for high-risk contracts, indicators supported by a specific financial penalty system corelated with the risk and exposure of the contract
- Held 1st Road Safety Cross divisional Forum for main High risk and Logistic Contractors with cross divisional internal and external high-level participation
- Road safety task force lead, 4 Transportation safety management system audits vs. legal and contractual requirements to selected main high-risk contractors (3 from E&P and 1 from R&M)
Aiming to provide HSSE advice and in the meantime to verify the HSSE performance of the activity performed by contractors, we continued in 2022 with 42 HSSE Management System audits, regular inspections, joint HSSE or safety walks, service quality meetings, HSSE forums and workshops. The outcomes of all these activities were used to share information and encourage improvement of HSSE performance within OMV Petrom and contractors’ organization.
As part of the HSSE Plan 2023, we defined safety focus areas as well as the main activities and goals. These were cascaded to operational sites and, together we established the steps for achieving our targets. In 2023, we will continue to focus on the following areas:
- Contractors (HSSE) Management
- Process Safety
- Safety Culture
In 2022 we continued the journey for safety culture development through a series of activities, including:
- Follow up on DuPont safety culture assessments by establishing an action plan for OMV Petrom, based on identified commonalities and specific action plans for operational sites in accordance with their needs
- Improve open reporting culture
- Keep the high commitment with the good practice of safety committees’ meetings
- Increase transparency and applicability of HSSE Motivational Management through celebrating success and recognizing and rewarding of safe behavior, by line management – Safety Awards Event on May 9th, the celebration of the winners nominated for a good safety performance.
During this reporting period, the “Digital individual training booklet” was implemented for OMV Petrom employees working in headquarter. This legally required training documentation has been transformed for around 2,500 employees in an easier process, which links the training database to an electronic signatures flow.
In the area of contractor management, we worked on:
- The development of a tool for managing HSSE contractual documents
- The improvement of subcontractor management with revised responsibilities and new contractual clauses for specific qualification and monitoring requirements
- Road Safety management and monitoring through the development of 4 new HSSE performance indicators
- Combined OMV Petrom Group LTIR value for YTD 2022 (0.24) is above IOGP LTIR benchmarking for 2021 (0.22)
- TRIR 2022 = 0.38, below above IOGP TRIR benchmarking for 2021 (0.77) and OMV Petrom target (1.00)
- 87% of our sites are certified on ISO 45001: 2018
- 29 formal joint health and safety committees (meetings on quarterly basis) with management and employee representatives were organized
- 5,400 employees were trained in health and safety by accessing our electronic system, totaling 98,000 hours of training
Our safety culture improved in 2022 as a result of open reporting, Life Saving Rules implementation, and Motivational Management. Moreover, we improved the tender process in Contractors HSSE Management and the monitoring of HSSE performance in contracted activities, as well as process safety management and transportation safety.
We plan to continue our work on the improvement of:
- HSSE in contracting (e.g. HSSE filing and subcontractor management)
- Road safety performance, through actions established by our dedicated task force