Health, Safety and Wellbeing

Health and Safety refers to the avoidance of harm that may be caused through exposure to uncontrolled releases of energy within process environments, or to toxic or asphyxiant atmospheres. Employee wellbeing refers to the maintenance of physical and mental health in areas such as nutrition, fitness, medical screening and work-life balance.

GRI 103-01, 103-02, 103-03, 403-01, 403-02, 403-03, 403-04, 403-05, 403-06, 403-07: Management approach

Health, Safety and Wellbeing collectively represent some of the fundamental rights of workers, and are widely monitored and recognised internationally. Prevention of harm and promotion of wellbeing requires concerted and sustained commitment to process safety, occupational health and safety, the supporting management systems and the monitoring of safety-related performance indicators, commensurate with an organisation’s size and activities. We have ten principles called Osool Bapco (Arabic for principles) that guide our behaviours.

We believe that EHS is integral to our business and we are committed to achieving continual improvement in our EHS performance. In the absence of relevant local rules and regulations, internationally accepted standards have been adopted as appropriate, e.g. our Process Safety Management framework for guiding safety-related activities across relevant departments and EHS Policy for achieving continual improvement in EHS performance.

Our hazard and risk identification programme applies to all our employees and contractors to ensure a safe working environment. All hazardous activities are evaluated by a competent person trained in our risk assessment processes. Contractor Safety Officers involved with the preparation of risk assessments for high risk work are trade tested by the HSE department and possess a recognised health and safety qualification, e.g. a National Examination Board in Occupational Safety and Health (NEBOSH) International General Certificate or equivalent. Having identified the hazards, we do everything reasonably practicable to protect people from harm. We follow relevant international standards and industry association guidelines, which we adopt within our company standards. When creating controls or considering changes to existing controls, we follow a risk control hierarchy (each control may use more than one barrier):

• Elimination;

• Substitution;

• Engineering controls;

• Administrative controls and/or barriers and signs; and

• Personal protective equipment.

Bapco has established a comprehensive set of leading and lagging indicators for the monitoring of health, safety and wellbeing. We collect data on safety related incidents, sickness, absenteeism and occupational illnesses and use these to identify trends to senior management. In common with widely recognised good practice, if an incident occurs, e.g. a ‘near miss’, an incident with the potential to cause harm, a description of these events are shared in ‘toolbox talks’ to raise awareness. We hold Safety, Health, Environment and Quality (SHEQ) moments at the beginning of all meetings to include either of Environment, Health, Safety or Quality as an item within meeting agendas. We have qualified onsite health practitioners who provide background screening for aspects of employee health, such as diabetes and women’s health, with data incorporated into leading occupational health indicators, and a fully equipped hospital at Awali.

During 2020 we held our EHS Family Day under the patronage of HE Shaikh Mohamed bin Khalifa Al Khalifa, the Minister of Oil at the Bahrain International Circuit. More than 37,000 Bapco employees, contractors, members of the public and their families attended the event.

During the reporting period we have continued our safety and occupational health activities covering several themes:

• Behaviour Observation Obtains Safe Trends (BOOST);

• Slips, Trips and Fall;

• Hands Safety;

• Enhancement of Lock out Tag out process;

• Ergonomics; and

• Management of hazardous chemicals.

GRI 403-08: Workers covered by an occupational health and safety management system

All employees and contractors are required to follow our occupational health and safety management system. The level of audit differs by worker status. In 2021, out of the 134 contractors employed, 30 are regarded as ‘core’ to the business. Audits, inspections and KPIs are completed for ‘core’ contractors only. However, we reconfirm our commitment to a safe working environment for all those working for Bapco, including those not regarded as ‘core’ contractors, and the strict enforcement of health and safety management across all our sites and operations. Our contractor EHS committee meets monthly to oversee these activities.

GRI 403-09: Work-related injuries

Bapco’s Incident Investigation and Reporting standard has three injury classifications as follows:

• Lost Time Injury (LTI): An injury arising from or in association with work which results in the injured person being absent from work on his/her next scheduled working day or shift;

• Non-LTI: An injury in which an employee sustains an injury in association with work which does not result in absence from work on the next scheduled working day or shift; and

• First Aid Injury (FAI): Any one-time treatment of minor injuries, which does not ordinarily require medical care. Follow up visits for checking or observation only do not change the FAI classification.

Injury rates for employees and contractors is the number of injuries per 200,000 employee-hours worked. The injury frequency rate is calculated according to ANSI Z16.4-1977 (American National Standards Institute for uniform record keeping of occupational injuries and illnesses) calculated as number of injuries multiplied by 200,000, divided by the number of employee hours worked.

One of our several safety campaigns - “Your Hands Matter”

GRI 403-10: Work-related ill health

The Kingdom of Bahrain has high ambient summer temperatures. During these months, we provide extensive onsite support and run campaigns and initiatives to prevent illnesses related to the hot conditions, such as our ‘Drink water... Stay Hydrated’ campaign. During 2020-2021 there were seven recordable incidents of heat stress.