Health & Safety
Health & Safety Performance
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Health & Safety Performance

 

Syncrude and its contractors enjoyed another year of excellent safety performance in 2003, with a total recordable injury frequency of 1.10 per 100 person years worked. Recordable injuries are comprised of medical aid incidents plus lost-time injuries. Total lost-time injuries were 0.11 per 100 person years worked.

While our 2003 performance constitutes a slightly higher incident occurrence than Syncrude’s best ever year in 2002, it is still a world class achievement, particularly given the large increase in people working in a construction environment, a change that results in a higher overall risk exposure. Syncrude’s safety performance also leads Alberta industry which, in 2003, experienced about 2.8 lost-time injuries per 100 person years worked.

 

Syncrude maintained excellent safety performance in 2003, despite a 45 per cent increase in contractor employees working in a high-risk construction environment.

    

Syncrude is a safe place to work. In 2003, workers sustained just 0.11 lost-time injuries per 100 person years worked. Our goal is a worksite where incidents that could harm people, equipment or the environment do not occur.

  

 

Health & Safety Performance

Long-term goal 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999

Lost-Time Injury Frequency*
Syncrude 0 0.15 0.12 0.21 0.22 0.11
Contractors 0 0.09 0.08 0.08 0.12 0.31
Combined 0 0.11 0.10 0.15 0.17 0.23

Recordable Injury Frequency*
Syncrude 0 0.79 0.57 0.58 0.86 0.77
Contractors 0 1.23 0.97 2 2.35 1.81
Combined 0 1.10 0.82 1.28 1.57 1.31

Employee Fatalities

0 0 0 0 0 0

Number of Lost-Time Injuries*
Syncrude 0 6 5 8 8 4
Contractors 0 8 5 3 4 12
Combined 0 14 10 11 12 16

Number of Recordable Injuries*
Syncrude 0 32 23 22 31 27
Contractors 0 113 61 76 77 63
Combined 0 145 84 98 108 90

Injury Severity Rate*
Syncrude 0 3.87 2.72 3.30 21.14 0.79
Contractors 0 3.96 1.02 0.18 5.17 5.57
Combined 0 3.93 1.68 1.74 13.53 3.17

*Recordable injury frequency is a ratio that includes all injuries requiring medical attention or which resulted in a worker being absent from work. It is expressed as injuries per 100 person years of work. A Lost-Time Injury is an injury that requires medical attention and results in the worker being absent from work. Injury severity is the number of lost workdays per 100 person years of work. It is also expressed per 100 person years of work.

2003 Symposium Promotes Courage to be Safe

Syncrude’s leading safety performance can be attributed in part to the participation of more than 1,800 of our safety stakeholders at our annual safety symposium, which was held in June. Represented at this unique event were over 130 contractor companies as well as leaders and front line workers from Syncrude and the building trades. The symposium focused on the concept of courageous leadership and how it is required for performance excellence in safety, productivity and quality. Also discussed were the societal, human and business impacts of alcohol and drugs in the workplace.

Ensuring Dam Safety

Syncrude has 21 dams of various kinds on its sites. To ensure their integrity and safe containment of materials held within, Syncrude has a comprehensive program comprising dam design and construction, operation, maintenance and surveillance, which is in accordance with the Mining Association of Canada liquid impoundment storage guidelines. The program relies on a skilled staff of geotechnical engineers and technologists and also benefits from advice solicited from internationally recognized geotechnical experts. The program ensures the ongoing geotechnical stability of these structures and has enabled more than 25 years of safe dam operation.

New Safety Association Delivers on Objectives

Oil sands developers and their contractors have expressed satisfaction with outcomes being generated by the new Oil Sands Safety Association. In its first six months of operation, the association implemented a new standard for Fall Protection Training and accredited four training providers who facilitated the training for 400 workers. The association, which was established by Syncrude, Suncor and Albian Sands to set oil sands industry standards for safe work practices, accredit qualified training providers and deliver standardized safety training, has eliminated duplicative effort while helping bring these oil sands developers closer to their goal of worksites that are injury free.

In 2004, the group will develop a common code of practice for workers who are required to work in confined spaces. Syncrude representatives serve on the Association’s Board of Directors.

Emergency Simulation Exercises Ensure Preparedness

Syncrude’s emergency response personnel may be called to respond to an emergency on the Syncrude site or, in keeping with our various mutual aid agreements, elsewhere within the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo. To prepare for potential emergencies and meet Syncrude’s corporate standards, our people frequently participate in a variety of training exercises to ensure readiness for any kind of emergency situation.

These exercises include Syncrude’s own emergency response simulations and those which are organized by groups that manage emergency response elsewhere in the Wood Buffalo region. Syncrude emergency response employees also are regular participants in competitive events such as the Firefighters and Mine Rescue Competitions.

These activities served Syncrude and its partners in emergency response well when a forest fire started just five kilometres north of Syncrude’s Mildred Lake site on June 18. The fire’s proximity to the community of Fort McKay necessitated the immediate evacuation of the town’s residents, as well as closure of a portion of Highway 63. The fire was brought under control within three days, after destroying 477 hectares of forest; people and other property went unharmed.

Regional Network Promotes a Safe and Healthy Community

As an active participant on the executive and working committees of the Wood Buffalo Safe Healthy Community Network, Syncrude is helping reduce injuries, improve population health and promote well being within its home communities. The Network was instrumental in getting Fort McMurray recognized as North America’s first “safe community” in 1995, by the World Health Organization. More recently, the Network has supported such programs as School Safe Arrival, Drug Roundup, Neighbourhood Inspections, and Safe Kids Day, as well as initiatives to promote local traffic safety and greater usage of child passenger restraints in vehicles.

Re-engineering a Safer Highway

In concert with local stakeholders and government, Syncrude took a lead role in adding an additional lane to a section of Highway 63 that runs between the Syncrude and Suncor plants. The 2003 action has significantly reduced traffic incidents in this busy area, and also has improved traffic flows.

AADAC Honours Syncrude

The Alberta Alcohol and Drug Abuse Commission recognized Syncrude’s employee health and wellness programs for excellence in 2003. Citing Syncrude as “a leader in the field of employee health and wellness”, David Nesbitt, manager of AADAC’s Business and Industry Clinic, noted that Syncrude has supported the clinic for about nine years. The clinic provides counselling and other services that help business employees dealing with addiction problems adopt a healthy and safe lifestyle. Syncrude also worked with AADAC to develop a workplace manual for supervisors and managers.

Syncrude Co-Sponsors Healthy Community Partnership

Syncrude’s leadership with pharmaceutical manufacturer Pfizer has helped launch an innovative community health partnership. HealthQuest is enabling Wood Buffalo residents to learn more about the risk factors for, and relationship between, chronic diseases such as cardiovascular illness and diabetes, and to take appropriate action. In November, some 250 people participated in a community health fair where they had their cholesterol, blood pressure and fitness levels assessed, and a further 40 people learned about heart disease at a public forum. The success of the Fort McMurray HealthQuest program may lead to its introduction to other Alberta communities. HealthQuest will return to Fort McMurray in October 2004.

Health Centres Work Around the Clock

Health Centres at Syncrude’s Mildred Lake and Aurora sites provide a comprehensive suite of health and medical services to all employees and contractor personnel, as well as emergency medical care to residents of neighbouring communities. The health centres are staffed by Syncrude’s Chief Medical Officer and a team of full-time Registered Nurses. In 2003, they provided services and advice on more than 19,000 occasions, an increase of about 16 per cent over 2002 which was caused by a large influx of contractor workers on our site.

Reasons for visiting the Centres were comprised of non-occupational illness and injuries at 41 per cent; followed by occupational injuries and illnesses, at 37 per cent; and surveillance of employees whose work may put them at risk of such conditions as hearing or vision impairment, at nine per cent.

Throughout 2003, Syncrude embarked on a campaign to ensure public stakeholders in highway communities between Edmonton and Fort McMurray were aware of the movement of large loads destined for Syncrude’s upgrader expansion project. The campaign, which included radio and newspaper advertisements, encouraged all drivers to be alert for large flatbed trucks on the highway and to take extra caution when encountering one.

 

A local traffic safety committee chaired jointly by Syncrude and the RCMP is identifying regional traffic safety issues and developing ways to reduce traffic incidents and fatalities on local roadways. The committee’s work is complementary to Transport Canada’s Vision 2010 initiative.

 

After experiencing the horror of becoming a traffic collision victim, Syncrude employee Dwight McIntosh has a new appreciation for life — and for the efforts of other Syncrude employees who aided in his rehabilitation. Two years ago, Dwight sustained serious injuries after being t-boned by a van and then thrown from the motorcycle he was driving. Dwight says he was “blown away” by many encouraging visits from co-workers and supervisors during a lengthy hospital stay, and by the support he received from Syncrude managers and personnel from Health & Wellness, Human Resources and Payroll. Dwight also benefited from treatment he received at the Syncrude Centre for

Motion and Balance at the Glenrose Rehabilitation Hospital in Edmonton. In combination, he says these resources made his eventual return to work “a pleasant, enjoyable and rewarding experience. I know that when it counts, Syncrude and the people who work here will be there for me.”