Safety performance

Personal safety

In 2017, following steady and significant improvements in our safety performance over the past decade, the number of injuries per million working hours – the total recordable case frequency –  further improved compared with 2016 and was the lowest ever. We also achieved our lowest ever level of injuries that led to time off work in 2017, measured as lost time injury frequency.

Our fatal accident rate – the number of fatalities per 100 million working hours – decreased in 2017 to the lowest ever level, but we still need to do more in this area. Regrettably, two people lost their lives while working for Shell in 2017.

Lost time injury frequency (LTIF)

injuries per million working hours

Enlarge image Lost time injury frequency (LTIF) - injuries per million working hours: 2008: 0.6; 2009: 0.4; 2010: 0.35; 2011: 0.36; 2012: 0.34; 2013: 0.36; 2014: 0.28; 2015: 0.26; 2016: 0.25; 2017: 0.2 (line chart) View this chart on the interactive chart generator

Fatal accident rate (FAR)

fatalities per 100 million working hours

Enlarge image Fatal accident rate (FAR) - fatalities per 100 million working hours: 2008: 3.4; 2009: 2.3; 2010: 1.56; 2011: 0.96; 2012: 1.32: 2013: 0.79; 2014: 0.74; 2015: 1.11; 2016: 0.53; 2017: 0.4 (line chart) View this chart on the interactive chart generator

Total recordable case frequency (TRCF)

injuries per million working hours

Enlarge image Total recordable case frequency (TRCF) - injuries per million working hours: 2008: 1.8; 2009: 1.4; 2010: 1.2; 2011: 1.2; 2012: 1.3; 2013: 1.2; 2014: 1.0; 2015: 0.9; 2016: 1.0; 2017: 0.8 (line chart) View this chart on the interactive chart generator

Process safety

In line with industry standards, we measure and report according to the significance of the incidents, with Tier 1 as the most significant. In 2017, our process safety performance deteriorated. The number of Tier 1 and 2 operational process safety events increased from 146 to 166, of which 49 were Tier 1 and 117 were Tier 2.

In 2017, the most significant operational incidents were fires at our Enchilada offshore platform in the USA and Pulau Bukom manufacturing site in Singapore. All businesses are working hard to return to the positive trend of previous years.

Process safety events related to sabotage and theft in Nigeria are recorded separately. There was an improvement during 2017 with fewer incidents: 9 Tier 1 and 0 Tier 2 events, compared to 20 Tier 1 and 0 Tier 2 in 2016.

Transport and road safety

We sadly recorded one road fatality in 2017, when one of our contractors was fatally injured in an accident while driving between sites in the Gold Creek area in Canada.