In the BP Deepwater Horizon explosion in April 2010, 11 industry colleagues died and a number were seriously injured. The incident led to the largest offshore oil spill in US history. The environment was damaged and people’s livelihoods suffered. Following the accident, Shell supported the response effort by providing equipment, technical expertise and facilities to BP. We also took immediate steps to confirm and reinforce the safety of our offshore operations around the world. Our review of deep-water drilling and safety procedures confirmed Shell’s approach is robust.
Our industry is determined to learn from what happened to prevent something similar occurring again. We are reviewing recommendations coming forward from investigations into the Deepwater Horizon incident and considering them against our standards and operating practices.
Safety continues to be our top priority. Our goal is to have zero fatalities and no incidents that harm our employees, contractors or neighbours, or put our facilities at risk. We continued to make progress towards that aim in 2010 with our best safety performance to date.
We manage safety across our business through a combination of rigorous systems and culture. This requires three behaviours from everyone working for us: complying with the rules; intervening in unsafe situations; and respecting people and the environment. Our global standards and operating procedures define the controls and physical barriers we require to prevent incidents. All Shell companies, Shell-operated joint ventures and our contractors must manage safety risks in line with the Shell Commitment and Policy on HSSE & SP, local laws and the terms of relevant permits and approvals.
We are reinforcing a culture where safety is a core value, and each person understands their role in making Shell a safer place to work. Everyone responsible for tasks that may carry safety risks is assessed for the necessary training and skills. On our annual global Safety Day for all employees and contractors around the world, we ask staff to make personal pledges to work in a safer way. We continue to enforce our mandatory 12 Life-Saving Rules with our employees and contractors to prevent serious injuries and fatalities. We have started to see improvement in areas such as road safety.
We continue to invest in maintaining process safety. For example, since 2006 we have been engaged in a $6 billion programme to improve the safety of our wells, pipelines and other Upstream facilities. In our Downstream business, we continue to improve the safety and reliability of our refineries, chemical plants and distribution facilities, investing some $1 billion alone in 2010.
