Community and Worker Safety

The 9.2 million workers that support the U.S. oil and natural gas industry work diligently to bring you the products you need to get around, heat and cool your homes, and power the U.S. economy. We operate in every state in the union, and in most communities around the country.

Because our work is so important, and because we are members of so many communities, the health and safety of both our workers and our communities is vital to us. We demonstrate this care through our record of declining rate of illnesses and injuries, a rate much lower than for the private sector as a whole. We achieve this record through our activities of information sharing, product safety testing, working with our government partners and communities to set health and safety standards, joint incident planning with our communities and first responders, and worker training.

Source: Data from US Bureau of Labor Statistics.

The Macondo incident in the Gulf of Mexico reminds us that we need to be ever vigilant to help protect our workers and communities. And we will continue to examine incidents like these to determine what went wrong and to share widely the findings so that we can avoid similar accidents in the future. This is our pledge to you.

The oil and natural gas industry has taken a number of steps to improve community and work safety:

• Worked with the auto industry and government agencies to develop safer, cleaner burning fuels. These fuels have been vital for improvements in air quality and the overall environment.
• Introduced more efficient processes and emission control technologies that have reduced emissions at oil refineries by 36% since 1996 (source: 2008 EPA Oil and Gas Sector Performance Report). Other oil and natural gas facilities have shown similar trends.
• Leak detection systems are used to monitor product storage facilities to ensure groundwater aquifers are protected.
• Processes have been improved to drastically cut wastes at oil and natural gas facilities.
• Jointly develop facility incident action plans with our communities and first responders and test those plans periodically to ensure their effectiveness.
• Regularly test and inspect safety equipment to ensure it is in good working order. Hold regular safety meetings and drills to ensure all parties know their duties during an incident.
• When spills occur, much of the material is removed thanks to technologies such as skimmers and sorbents. Dispersants can be added to facilitate the natural removal of oil and oil products by bacteria and chemical processes. Best practices for removing spilled oil are shared at forums such as the International Oil Spill Conference. The oil and natural gas industry developed the Environmental Research Forum to explore new and more effective ways to deal with spills. Spill response teams have been formed to quickly deal with spills should they occur.
• Use sophisticated computer systems to monitor and control facility processes to ensure they are operating safely.
• Collect and share safety data in the form of benchmarking surveys to provide a consistent, reliable and accurate industry metric for measuring and tracking safety trends and to promote continuous improvement.
• Gathered and published health and environmental hazard information on HPV chemicals (defined as those chemicals manufactured in, or imported into, the U.S. in amounts equal to or exceeding 1 million pounds per year). The information resulting from this program is provided to the public, fulfilling the commitment of EPA and the chemical and oil and natural gas industries to the publics' right-to-know. For more information on this program, visit http://www.epa.gov/chemrtk/index.htm.
• Test the health and safety aspects of our fuels and products and provide this information to consumers through avenues such as Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS).
• The oil and natural gas industry considers safety its top priority and is committed to developing the technologies, standards and best practices, and programs needed to help ensure that workplace safety is at the forefront of our activities. Over 160 standards are accessible online. See API’s Government-cited Documents and Safety Documents website for more information.