Safety

Safety at bp is underpinned by our operating management system (OMS). Our OMS provides a single framework for delivering safe, reliable and compliant operations. In 2023 we updated our OMS to make it simpler and clearer. This update provides a closer focus on human performance, our Safety Leadership Principles and the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers’ (IOGP) Life-Saving Rules.

Our safety culture

Our Safety Leadership Principles are designed to guide behaviour and ways of working across bp to drive a robust, consistent safety culture. Our Safety Leadership Principles are:

• We genuinely care about each other
• We will not compromise our focus on safety
• We encourage and recognize the need to speak up
• We understand how work actually happens
• We learn why mistakes occur and respond supportively.

Our Safety Leadership Principles are guided by human performance. They enable a culture of care by helping us understand how people interact with their working environment – recognizing that we all make mistakes. We take action to prevent and reduce the consequences of these mistakes.

Life-Saving Rules

We recognize the value of industry standardization and consistent rules to help improve safety performance, including IOGP’s Life-Saving Rules. In 2023 we continued rolling out and embedding them across our operating businesses, through activities such as safety inductions, team safety talks and control of work systems.

Personal safety

We deeply regret the fatalities and life-changing injuries that occurred at bp in 2023. In May a contractor in our US Permian operations was fatally injured when operating a forklift and in June, a contractor in the Permian region suffered a life-changing injury while performing manual activity. At our TravelCenters of America business, one employee was struck by a vehicle and fatally injured and another employee was killed in a workplace violence incident^a.

We have offered our condolences and support to the families and employees affected. We are taking action to learn from these incidents to drive further improvements in safety.

In 2023 our recordable injury frequency (RIF) increased by 47%^b. A rise in the number of injuries in North America (which we attribute in part to the onboarding of retail operations we acquired, including Thorntons) contributed to this increase. Plans are in place to help prevent injuries in the future.

^a In 2023 bp acquired the US-based TravelCenters of America business. Shortly after the acquisition was completed, two separate incidents occurred resulting in  fatalities. At the time of publication, TravelCenters of America safety reporting processes were still being integrated into bp’s reporting processes and as such, these fatalities are not included in reported fatality data for 2023.

^b At the time of publication, the recently acquired US-based Archaea Energy and TravelCenters of America safety reporting processes were still being integrated into bp’s safety reporting processes and as such, Archaea Energy and TravelCenters of America safety performance data is not included in reported data for 2023.

^c The number of reported work-related incidents that resulted in a fatality or injury.

Driving safety

Driving is one of the biggest personal safety risks we face at bp. In 2023 seven severe vehicle accidents occurred, a decrease from 10 in 2022. The number of kilometres driven fell by 4.2% during the same period.

Process safety

Our combined reported tier 1 and tier 2 process safety events (PSEs) have generally decreased during the past 11 years, apart from in 2019^a. This downward trend continued in 2023 when we reported 39 PSEs, 11 fewer (22%) than in 2022. We have also made progress in preventing and reducing spills. In 2023 there were 100 oil spills^b compared to 108 in 2022 and 121 in 2021.

Although portfolio changes may affect the overall baseline of our operations, our goal is still the elimination of tier 1 PSEs.

^a At the time of publication, the recently acquired US-based Archaea Energy and TravelCenters of America safety reporting processes were still being integrated into bp’s safety reporting processes and as such, Archaea Energy and TravelCenters of America safety performance data is not included in reported data for 2023.

^b The number of accidental or unplanned losses of hydrocarbon from primary containment from a bp or contractor operation, irrespective of any secondary containment or recovery. Oil spills >1bbl are defined as any liquid hydrocarbon release of more than, or equal to, one barrel (159 litres, equivalent to 42 US gallons).

^c Tier 1 events are losses of primary containment from a process of greatest consequence – causing harm to a member of the workforce, damage to equipment from a fire or explosion, a community impact or exceeding defined quantities (per API RP 754 tier 1 definitions). Tier 2 events are those of lesser consequence (per API RP 754 tier 2 definitions).

Emergency preparedness

The scale and spread of our operations mean we must be prepared to respond to a range of possible disruptions, including emergencies. We maintain disaster recovery, crisis, and business continuity management plans and work to build day-to-day response capabilities to support local management of incidents.