The International Association of Oil and Gas Producers’ (IOGP) latest safety incident data indicate five more fatalities in 2024 than in 2023 but an overall decrease in the percentage of fatal accidents because of a 26% increase in worked hours (Fig. 1).
Of the 4,159 million work hours last year, 72% were associated with onshore activities and 28% with offshore activities.
The recordable injury rate in 2024 was down from 2023’s rate of 0.84 per million hours worked to 0.81. In both years, the overall lost-time injury rate was steady at 0.24 per million work hours.
In an executive summary of safety performance indicators based on 2024 data from member companies, the organization said the 32 fatalities in 2024 occurred in 21 separate incidents for a resulting fatal accident rate of 0.77, which is 6% lower than the 2023 figure of 0.82. In 2024, member companies reported a 26% increase in work hours recorded over 2023.
The report shows about a third of 2024 fatalities–11 of 32–occurred during six separate drilling, workover, and well operations accidents in 2024, followed by seven fatalities during production and four during construction activities (Fig. 2). Land transport accidents claimed four lives, maintenance accidents three, lifting two, and air transport one.
Explosions, fires, and burns were responsible for 41% of 2024 deaths at 13, which occurred across five separate incidents. Four of last year’s fatalities occurred from assault or a violent act related to a drone strike in the Kurdistan region of Iraq.
When it came to days lost, members reported 726 of the 946 lost-work-day cases were contractor-related, with 220 incidents being company-related (Fig. 3). In 2024, 206 cases, or 22% of that total, were slips and trips at the same height, compared with 175 cases in 2023, which accounted for 23% of that year’s total cases. Other major lost-work-day cases were attributed to workers being caught in, under, or between (excluding dropped objects) and struck by (not dropped object).
In a 2 July announcement about the performance data release, Steve Norton, IOGP’s health, safety, security, and wells director, pointed out that the fatal accident rate has decreased by more than 90% since 1985. And, while the rate rose in the 2 years following the COVID-19 pandemic, that trend has reversed, he added.
“These highlights from the data give a sense of optimism that we are on the right path,” he wrote, noting each of 2024’s 32 fatalities represented a tragedy.
“Our ambition is to eliminate fatalities,” he said.
With explosions, fires, and burns accounting for 41% of the fatalities in 2024, the IOGP Process Safety Subcommittee is developing new guidance for process safety in design and process safety for leaders and guidelines for determination of process safety events and is continuing to promote the adoption and implementation of the process safety fundamentals, he wrote.
