Every year the International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) produces an annual report of safety statistics (covering fatalities and injuries) supplied by members.
“Safety statistics are a useful insight into the performance of a company and industry sector in the areas of health, safety and environment,” explains Hugh Williams, Chief Executive of IMCA. We publish the figures to record the safety performance of IMCA contractor members each year and to enable them to benchmark their performance.
“Our statistics for the period 1 January-31 December 2011 were provided by 195 companies and organisations, representing around 60% of our marine contractor membership, and based upon 583 million man-hours of work overall (431 million of them offshore). Fifty-five companies and organisations took part for the first time. The summary speaks for itself:
- Overall lost time injury frequency rate (overall LTIFR) 0.64 (0.73)
- Overall number of lost time injuries 370 (393)
- Overall total recordable injury rate (TRIR) 2.40 (2.74)
- Overall fatal accident rate (FAR) 0.51 (1.28)
- Offshore lost time injury frequency rate (offshore LTIFR) 0.71 (0.86)
- Offshore fatal accident rate (FAR) 0.70 (1.29)
- Offshore total recordable injury rate (TRIR) 2.63 (3.19)
- Onshore lost time injury frequency rate (onshore LTIFR) 0.44 (0.43)
- Onshore total recordable injury rate (TRIR) 1.76 (1.64)
- Summary of IMCA safety statistics for 2011 (last year’s figures in brackets)
Key: FAR – fatal accident rate; TRIR, total recordable injury frequency rate; LTIFR – lost time injury frequency rate
The highest incidence of lost time injuries (LTIs), of which there were 370, was caused by falls on the same level (including slips and trips) accounting for 24% of LTIs, with ‘struck by moving/falling objects’ in second place with 21%.
Of the 195 companies who contributed to the report, 57 were from IMCA’s Asia-Pacific Section; 11 from Central & North America; 85 from Europe and Africa; 32 from the Middle East and India; two from South America; and eight were their International Contractor members who cover all sections.
“For the purposes of comparison, the safety statistics recorded here by our members are consistent with those of other main industry trade associations such as the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (OGP) and the International Association of Drilling Contractors (IADC),” explains Hugh Williams.
In common with these organisations and others in our industry IMCA is focussing on major incidents and asset integrity. The results of such incidents are contained where appropriate in these statistics but particular learnings may be obscured by the occupational health statistics, from slips trips and falls, contained in the results. IMCA is considering some new categories to enable these results to be separated and thereby to facilitate the desired outcome – learning from a major/asset threatening incident. IMCA is also carrying out a review of its good practice guidelines which contain guidance related to major and asset threatening incidents to ensure that the necessary topics are covered.
Further information on IMCA, its work and publications is available from the website at www.imca-int.com and from IMCA, 52 Grosvenor Gardens, London SW1W 0AU, UK. Tel: +44 (0)20 7824 5520; Fax: +44 (0)20 7824 5521; email: imca@imca-int.com for general enquiries and publications@imca-int.com for information on all publications.