Technical Report Lays Out Path to Zero Harm and Beyond
Authors: Wilson Adam 
Published: October 2018

This article, written by Special Publications Editor Adam Wilson, contains highlights of paper SPE 190485, “Getting to Zero and Beyond,” by J. Jack Hinton, SPE, Baker Hughes, a GE company; Colette M. Glencross, SPE, True North Concepts; Tony Zamora, SPE, ERM; Tom Knode, SPE, Athlon Solutions; and Andrew Dingee, SPE, ADE, prepared for the 2018 SPE International Conference on Health, Safety, Security, Environment, and Social Responsibility, Abu Dhabi, 16–18 April. The paper has not been peer reviewed.

Between 2009 and 2016, the Society of Petroleum Engineers facilitated a series of global sessions to develop ideas for the continued improvement of health, safety, and environment (HSE) in the industry. The diverse group of participants generated many valuable ideas for improved performance. The resulting technical report, “Getting to Zero and Beyond: The Path Forward,” sets the stage for continuing the discussion across the industry of the essential steps the industry must take to sustain zero harm.

Introduction

For more than 2 decades, the oil and gas industry has set HSE goals that are focused on reducing incidents with the ultimate intended outcome that no one is hurt and no releases occur. The concept of zero harm, therefore, is not new to the industry. What has been a challenge for decades, however, is aligning on an effective pathway to achieve these goals. To attain zero harm, a step change in thinking, performance, and alignment around HSE is required across the industry.

When faced with these challenges, the industry’s alignment on an expectation of zero harm must encompass managing its risks as a high-reliability industry, and, given this goal, many opportunities exist for companies to focus their efforts on moving toward implementing generative characteristics common to high-reliability organizations.

Next Steps

Shift From Zero as a Goal to Zero as an Expectation. To eliminate catastrophic events in the oil and gas industry, it must revise the vision of zero. Defining zero harm as a goal implies that incremental safety-performance targets can be set, acknowledging that operations will harm today. Further, this thinking can lead to a detrimental focus on incidents and injuries that may lead to under-reporting of incidents, gaming of statistics, manipulation of incident definitions, and overly aggressive management of injury cases. A goal of zero suggests an unattainable numerical target of perfection. Rather, the industry needs to think of zero harm as an expectation at each and every moment. It must acknowledge the risks in the industry and, at the same time, expect that its people will go home safe today.

Perhaps this is a nuanced, subtle shift in thinking—from a goal of zero harm to an expectation of zero harm—but the difference between the two is the difference between focusing on future improvement and focusing on safety in the moment. This shift in mindset is imperative to eliminating catastrophic incidents.

Continue To Progress the Application of Human Factors. The cultural shift to being proactive, and ultimately to being generative, is causing a healthy questioning of how the industry has managed HSE.