Health & safety

APPEA aims to support the achievement of excellence in the oil and gas industry’s health, safety and environmental performance. It does this by:

• promoting the attainment of high standards through benchmarking and the identification and sharing of lessons learned and best practice;
• facilitating a whole-of-industry approach through the Chief Executive Officers Safety Leadership Forum;
• promoting a performance-based regulatory regime that is applied in a consistent, cost effective and efficient manner across all operations and jurisdictions;
• developing and implementing collaborative initiatives to drive improvements in the industry’s performance;
• increasing government and community understanding of the industry’s health and safety performance.

Health and safety performance

Incident statistics compiled by APPEA reveal a steady improvement in the oil and gas industry’s health and safety performance.

In 2011, the number of lost time injuries per million hours worked declined to a 16-year low of 0.8 compared to 1.0 in 2010 and 3.4 in 1996.

The total recordable injury rate (recordable injuries per million hours worked) followed a similar trend, declining to 4.7 in 2011 compared with 5.1 in 2010 and 13.4 in 1996.

Injury rates have declined despite a significant increase in industry activity and hours worked over recent years. Onshore drilling activity has expanded rapidly to meet the needs of Queensland’s coal seam gas industry; and construction activity, particularly in Queensland, the Northern Territory and Western Australia, has reached unprecedented levels.