The Company has developed a set of measures to prevent oil, petroleum products spills and emergencies.
Emergencies Prevention, Response Preparedness and Emergency Response corporate standard establishes measures that LUKOIL Group companies have to take to prevent accidents and emergencies. Thus, the companies shall without failure identify, analyze, estimate risks of emergencies and related threats, as well as timely review measures to eliminate these risks.
LUKOIL has established emergency prevention and response committees that serve as bodies that coordinate and consider the whole scope of issues related to emergency prevention and response.
The First Vice President of PJSC LUKOIL shall be responsible for control over emergency risks and actions that have to be taken for industrial and environmental safety.
The company uses drones and unmanned air vehicles with internal combustion engines, appropriate for the environment of the Extreme North, for aerial patrol of its facilities and early recognition of loss of containment and oil spills. Aerial inspections of in- and interfield pipelines take place at least once in every three days.
The Company prepares its pipelines for autumn-winter season and spring floods, intensifying patrols of flood prone areas.
Assessment of risks of oil and petroleum products spills is a mandatory practice for LUKOIL. The analysis includes scenario modelling that is applied both at project development and during operation of production facilities.
Assessment of risks at project development phase is performed as part of Environmental Risk Assessment procedure. Risk assessment during operations is delivered together with the development of oil and petroleum products spills prevention and response action plans. These documents substantiate levels of emergencies, analyze scenarios of how they begin and develop, and how they impact a facility, environment, employees and local community.
To minimize possible risks, the Company takes preventive measures (rescue drills, equipment maintenance, repairs and replacement; monitoring of license areas, etc.). If an emergency occurs, a response and recovery plan comes into action.
All Russian companies that operate hazardous facilities have spill prevention and response plans. These plans provide a detailed code of measures to prevent, immediately disclose and respond to emergencies in the most efficient and coordinated manner. Every spill prevention and response plan
provides a detailed description of actions to be taken upon emergency alert;
covers procedures for notification of LUKOIL's units, federal and local authorities;
allocates responsibilities for coordinated actions and management of rescue crews;
instructs on actions to be taken to ensure public safety, etc.
LUKOIL Group production and technical personnel shall make themselves familiar with emergency containment and response action plans against signature in a special briefing log book.
Managers and technical directors of facilities shall be responsible for timely and correct development of emergency containment and response plans as well as for their applicability and adequacy.
Spill prevention and response plans envisage measures to prevent adverse effect of oil and petroleum products on wildlife, included in the plans in all cases, envisaged by legislation, or at areas of increased sensitivity. State environmental expert review commission shall review spill response and prevention plans for offshore facilities prior to their approval.
Apart from spill prevention and response plans, the Company conducts regular in-process inspections of safety compliance, required by corporate process monitoring and the Integrated Management System. If found, any gaps or inconsistencies are then addressed in a remedial plan.
LUKOIL has formed rescue units of over two thousand people from among employees to be able to respond to emergencies. Some of these teams are stationed at production facilities. The Company also concludes recurrent rescue service agreements with professional and experienced rescue crews. Oil and gas producing companies that operate at the risk of blowouts, hold contracts on preventive maintenance and response to gas and water shows or blowouts. Both in-house and outsourced rescue units have permits for rescue operations.
Deployment of rescue crews is regulated by spill prevention and response plans. If an emergency occurs at a remote area, the first crews to react are the ones, closest to the emergency site.
The Russian law stipulates that containment of an oil spill, following its discovery or after the information of the spill came in, shall not take longer than four hours (offshore), and six hours (onshore).
Regular drills and classroom trainings provide for the crews' high state of alert. Federal and regional drills take place once every year. The Company pays special attention to offshore drills and drills at oil production facilities.
Trainings and drills are held at least once a year or as newly approved containment and response plans come into force. Scheduled or snap, drills help transit knowledge from theory into practice. Heads of outsourced rescue units take up extra training courses for rescue and emergency response leaders both at primary and subsequent certifications.
The corporate ERTs are also engaged in emergency response that takes place in the regions of LUKOIL's presence, however is not part of the Company's operations. This is a way of LUKOIL assisting the local authorities and communities.
Service contractors perform a considerable scope of work for LUKOIL entities engaged in exploration and production. To achieve the high quality of work LUKOIL Group uses a comprehensive approach combining methods of control and interaction with its contractors.
Supervisors from LUKOIL continuously control activities of service companies to make sure they adhere to design documentation, work plans and safety requirements. Supervisors use check lists covering all relevant aspects, from record keeping to the quality and safety of work. Hydrofracturing operations are subject to special control by supervisors and experts of LUKOIL.
Inspection visits to production facilities take place on a regular basis. The inspection groups include representatives of drilling engineering and technical services and divisions in charge of occupational health and safety in LUKOIL entities.
The standard practice is to assess the quality of well drilling and reconstruction performed by service contractors by giving them relevant rating scores.
LUKOIL maintains a constant dialogue with its contractors to discuss issues of importance and jointly look for methods to enhance the quality and safety of work.
Representatives of contractors participate in Safety Days organized by LUKOIL and entities of the Group on a regular basis, where they can familiarize themselves with advanced techniques and present their own best practices.
At all of its production facilities, LUKOIL has installed alerting systems, sustained in hot 24/7 standby mode. Operations control duty desk immediately communicate information on an emergency to PJSC LUKOIL Central Dispatch Office that in its turn alerts the Company's management and supervising authorities, reporting on the emergency case itself, the time of occurrence, impact, aftermath and the casualty toll.
Staff employees, contractor personnel, working at LUKOIL's facilities, and rescue units who take first protection, rescue and evacuation measures, are the first ones to be warned with alarm horns in an emergency. Federal executive authorities and local authorities, as well as local representative offices of federal agencies are notified in line with effective legislation. In foreign countries, emergency notification is carried out in line with local legislations. All emergency response participants communicate with each other continuously during containment and response operations.
The Company establishes an emergency response center for major emergencies. With Central Dispatch Center, that coordinates response actions, following live broadcasting from the emergency site, emergency response operations remain under full control until all remedial actions, including reclamation, are over. Local population is notified and, if necessary, evacuated by emergency response agencies and regional or local authorities.
Fire at oil and gas fields and refineries can be hazardous and cause damage to facilities and imperil people in neighboring areas and environment. Besides, some production facilities are located in regions, exposed to frequent wildfires. To mitigate risks of negative impact, associated with fires, LUKOIL has developed and introduced a code of fire safety rules. The Company controls fire safety compliance on a regular basis, and
arranges for mandatory preventive measures (orientations, fire safety drills, control of operations by line managers and competent employees);
performs integrated audit of LUKOIL Group companies;
provides for expert assessment of construction, reconstruction and upgrade project designs for their compliance with fire safety requirements;
timely maintains and monitors firefighting systems and equipment at its facilities;
continuously monitors integrity of fire and explosion hazardous process equipment and controls compliance with process flows;
holds joint drills with the federal firefighting service.
