2010 Gulf of Mexico Spill Support and Response
Our E&P Company does not have any operations in the deepwater of the Gulf of Mexico. As a result, we are not faced with some of the recent risks associated with the Deepwater Horizon incident in 2010. However, following the incident in April 2010, we took various precautions across our operations to maintain service to our customers, while continuing to protect the safety of our employees and contractors in the affected area, including the following:
- Developed health and safety plans for employees;
- Contacted producer platforms before flying to them to ensure they were safe for our employees;
- Requested a waiver from the Minerals Management Service to adjust schedules if necessary for routine facility testing that could be delayed due to flying or platform conditions;
- Stayed in close contact with the incident command center and government officials to raise awareness of potential damage to our facilities from response vessels working in the area;
- Worked with other operators to understand the impact of the spill;
- Worked with suppliers and emergency response providers to understand how services were being deployed during the incident, with a particular focus on what resources might be available in the event of other incidents; and
- Developed specific plans for our response in case the spill spread to our platforms.
Pipeline Integrity Program
At El Paso, we take pipeline safety seriously, and we back that commitment with a Pipeline Integrity Management Program that uses a wide variety of mitigation measures to address numerous threats. Our program, which significantly exceeds federal requirements, is considered one of the most comprehensive programs in the pipeline industry.
We launched the program in 2001 with a goal of using in-line inspection tools, including smart pigs, to inspect as much of our system as practical. The objective was to complete at least a first-time in-line inspection on substantially all of our onshore pipe that is six inches or greater in size by the end of 2012. In fact, our program is designed to encompass 85 percent of the pipeline miles we operate. Furthermore, we plan to spend more than $1.2 billion by 2012 to modify our system for in-line inspections, run inspection tools, and complete remediation. In 2010, we neared completion of this robust program.
In addition to our inline inspection process, we have many other programs in place to protect the integrity of our systems. These include policies and procedures regarding cathodic protection, pipe coating, pressure testing, field inspections and assessments, pipeline surveillance and marking programs, preventative maintenance, participation in one-call systems, and community outreach programs.
However, consistent with our goal of seeking continuous improvements in the area of safety, we have begun to look forward to further enhancing our efforts over the next decade and beyond. This will include various measures to protect the integrity of our assets, to extend their useful life, and to protect the safety of our employees and the communities in which we operate. This will also include improvements in our outreach programs to protect against third parties damaging our pipeline infrastructure. We believe that these enhancements to an already strong program will strengthen our leadership position in this critical area and will continue our drive to provide natural gas and related energy products in a safe, efficient, and dependable manner.
Our Safety Performance
We continue to be an industry leader in safety. Our total recordable incident rate (TRIR) and days away incident rate (DAIR) were in the top quartile of our industry groups. Despite being in the top quartile, we continue to strive for continuous improvement and we establish targets each year that are more aggressive than prior years.
For example, the E&P Company has shown a steady improvement in TRIR performance since 2006. We also had several areas of excellent safety performance, including the team members in the Arkoma region completing 10 years with zero injuries, and our international operations teams in Brazil and Egypt also had zero injuries in 2010.
The E&P Company and Shared Services organizations both improved their DAIR and TRIR performance from 2009. Our Pipeline Group achieved their best ever vehicle incident rate performance. However, we experienced increases in the DAIR and TRIR in our Pipeline Group in comparison to 2009, and we have implemented measures in 2011 to seek improvements in our overall safety performance.
Shared Services’ contractor TRIR for the Houston building renovation has shown a steady improvement in the past three years, with 2010 being the best year. We’re pleased that, throughout all three years of the building’s renovation, the contractor TRIR has been below the Construction Industry Standard.
Furthermore, we continue to review new ways to enhance our existing safety programs and launch new safety programs. We have established proactive safety metrics focused around leadership engagement and involvement with our contractors to achieve our goals for continuous improvement in safety performance.
For example, El Paso has all leaders create Leadership EH&S Action Plans (LEAPs) to identify fundamental Environmental, Health and Safety (EH&S) activities that are measurable to a level of engagement established by each leader. We believe achieving our vision of injury-free operations is not possible without steadfast support and engagement of leadership.
In 2010, the E&P Company set a goal to strengthen frontline supervision and provided leadership training to 208 field supervisors and consultants.
El Paso values the partnership we have established with the contractors performing operations, maintenance, and construction projects along our system. We believe our success is linked to successful and safe execution by our contractors on each and every job. Because we value the safety of our contractors’ personnel, we have established goals to drive industry-leading contractor safety performance. The E&P Company has created a Contractor On-boarding Process that strengthens alignment not only within E&P and its contractors, but also within El Paso companywide. In addition, the E&P Company has implemented new processes to better manage contractor safety by verifying their safety procedures are in line with ours and disqualifying any high-risk contractors before they begin working for us. Through the disqualification of high-risk contractors, we are able to better manage the contractors working for us, while improving our overall safety performance.
To ensure contractors understand our standards and expectations, we hold an annual forum with leadership from El Paso’s primary contractors. More than 300 contractors participated in the 2010 forum, which included presentations by our leadership and EH&S professionals and recognition of the contractors who met exceptional safety performance at El Paso.
We conduct contractor roundtables within our various divisions and regions to ensure our contractors’ first-line supervisors are aligned with our safety standards and expectations. Finally, we conduct contractor safety reviews on specific projects. The reviews evaluate contractor programs, policies, procedures, and performance. We believe this comprehensive contractor safety program will continue to drive consistent, industry-leading performance that designed to have our contractors’ personnel go home safely at the end of each project.
