Preventing oil spills

Spills from oil tankers attract the most public attention but are thankfully rare. Ships that we manage carried 41 million tonnes of cargo in 2007. Less than 1 tonne of hydrocarbons was spilt, reflecting our strict operating requirements. Spills from other ships that we hired on a long-term basis were around 2.3 tonnes.

Less dramatic – but more frequent – are spills at our facilities. These are of two types: spills from hurricanes or sabotage, which we cannot control and which fluctuate with events; and spills from factors we can control, like corrosion or operational failure. Reducing the latter requires clear procedures, consistent compliance and a lot of hard work. Operational spills have fallen since 1998, mainly due to improvements in pipeline inspection and maintenance in our upstream business, and more concentration on fixing the causes of minor leaks in our downstream business. This trend continued in 2007 because of continued improvements in our downstream business.

Our total spill volume rose in 2007 mainly because of a sharp rise in spills due to sabotage in Nigeria (up 80% by volume), where crude oil thefts and attacks by militants continued. At sites that were shut down by the security situation, reliable information about spills will not be available until we can return to repair and restart operations.

While our focus is on prevention, we are also ready to minimise the impact if a spill occurs. In 2007, we added spill response requirements to our global environmental standards. Our company-wide oil and chemical spill advisory group also ran a focused campaign promoting a prompt and effective response to incidents.