Occupational Safety
Hess emphasizes a culture of ownership for occupational safety by empowering workers and giving them the responsibility to identify and mitigate the potential safety risk relevant to their operations.
In 2021, we achieved a 9% reduction in our workforce total recordable incident rate (TRIR) compared with 2020, just under our goal of a 10% reduction year over year. This reduction was driven by a year over year decrease in our employee TRIR but was offset by a slight increase in our contractor rate – due to one additional contractor safety incident compared with 2020. Our workforce lost time incident rate increased from 0.09 in 2020 to 0.12 in 2021, again due to one additional lost time incident compared with 2020. No employee or contractor fatalities occurred during 2021.
In response to incidents throughout the year, our asset teams conducted root cause analyses and implemented corrective actions across our onshore and offshore operations. We share information on safety incidents and related lessons learned across our operations to help prevent future incidents.
Hess’ enterprisewide annual incentive plan metrics include a target aimed at reducing the rate of severe and significant safety incidents (SSSIs). In 2021, our SSSI rate was 0.420 – a six year low and a 14% reduction from 2020 – which surpassed our target of 0.423.
As part of our SSSI rate, we track near miss incidents that have the potential to result in severe consequences, as well as incidents that result in an actual consequence, including Tier 2 process safety events (PSEs) and recordable incidents. We require that near miss incidents be reported internally and recorded into our incident management system as if an actual consequence had occurred.
Process Safety
The aim of Hess’ process safety program is to prevent the unplanned or uncontrolled loss of primary containment of any material, including materials that are nontoxic and nonflammable (e.g., steam, nitrogen, compressed air), that could result in an incident such as injury, fire, explosion, toxic release or environmental impact.
We focus on understanding and identifying key points within process safety systems that could impact asset integrity and the safe and proper operation of equipment. In particular, we address the following:
- Design integrity: Reducing risks in the design and construction of facilities
- Technical integrity: Inspecting, testing and maintaining hardware and software barriers
- Operational integrity: Working within operational design limits
Our approach to process safety involves identifying, managing and mitigating risks across Hess operations. We do this by raising awareness of risks among our workforce, providing strong safety leadership and maintaining a commitment to continuously improve our process safety procedures, systems and standards.
Compared with 2021, 2022 Tier 1 PSEs remained flat and Tier 2 events increased. We completed investigations and root cause analyses for all Tier 1 and 2 PSEs, and we are implementing appropriate corrective actions to help prevent similar incidents in the future.
Our program supports our compliance with regulatory requirements including, where applicable, those of the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration’s Process Safety Management, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Management Program, and the U.S. Department of Transportation’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration and includes these certifications
Emergency Preparedness and Response
Hess’ emergency preparedness and response program, which is formalized in HOMS Element 9, outlines our approach to responding to actual or potential injuries to people, spills and releases to the environment, damage to our assets and impacts to the company’s reputation – in that order of priority. We use a three tiered approach to plan for and respond to emergencies that integrates communication and response actions across our organization – from our corporate level Incident Support Team in Houston to asset level Incident Management Teams and facility level emergency response teams. This system also helps ensure that standards, plans, information and resources work efficiently so that we understand and address the specific needs of the situation at hand.
Preparedness at Hess involves our emergency response organization, engagement with officials and communities, emergency facilities and response plans. We also maintain relationships with mutual aid and emergency response organizations at the local, regional and global levels.
Contractor Management
Contractors are essential to Hess, constituting approximately 70% of our total workforce hours and performing key tasks throughout our operations. Our approach to managing contractors – from prequalification to ongoing engagement to assurance – is formalized in Element 6 of the Hess Operational Management System.