Safety performance

We are deeply saddened to report that four of our contractor colleagues in Shell-operated ventures lost their lives in 2023 during the course of their work for Shell. An additional contractor colleague who was injured in 2023, succumbed to their injuries in February 2024. One contractor colleague in Malaysia died during scaffolding work, and one in the Philippines died after a fall from height. Two contractor colleagues in Nigeria died in a security incident, along with four government security agents. In Nigeria, another contractor colleague injured in a tugboat fire incident later passed away.

These losses have a deep and far-reaching impact on families, friends and colleagues. We are determined to learn from these incidents and take steps to prevent something similar from happening again. We continue to work closely with our contractors to help build a strong safety culture at the frontline.

Several industry safety leadership groups confirm that serious and high-potential incidents often have different root causes than most lower-consequence events. The serious injury, illness and fatality frequency (SIF-F) enables us to focus our investigations on the most serious incidents. The aim is to collect and analyse relevant, high-quality data that can help us improve our efforts to prevent serious injuries and fatalities.

In 2023, the SIF-F was 2.6 injuries and illnesses per 100 million working hours compared with 2.0 in 2022. The SIF-F for 2022 was adjusted from 1.7 to 2.0 due to a classification change for one injury after publication in March 2023. The number of serious injuries and fatalities increased to 12 in 2023 (five fatalities and seven serious injury cases) from nine in 2022. Fatalities in 2023 include one contractor colleague who was injured in a 2023 incident and unfortunately died from their injuries in February 2024.

The number of Tier 1 and 2 operational process safety events in 2023 decreased compared with 2022. There were 63 incidents reported during the year compared with 66 in 2022.

For reporting on process safety, in this Report, we combine Tier 1 and 2 events. A Tier 1 process safety event is an unplanned or uncontrolled release of any material from a process, including non-toxic and non-flammable materials, with the greatest actual consequence resulting in harm to employees, contract staff or a neighbouring community, damage to equipment, or exceeding a defined threshold quantity. A Tier 2 process safety event is a release of lesser consequence.

In 2023, there were zero Level 1 or Level 2 well control incidents in Shell-operated ventures. A well control incident is defined as a well set up with less than two barriers in place to protect it against a release through any potential path.

As part of Shell's learner mindset approach, we investigate serious incidents so we can understand the underlying causes, including technical, behavioural, organisational and human factors. We share what we learn, including with contractors. We implement mitigations at the site and in the country and business where the incident occurred. We seek to turn incident findings into improved standards or better ways of working that can be applied widely across similar facilities.