Safety and Commitment to Life

After the World Health Organization (WHO) declared the pandemic in March 2020, we internally established an Organizational Response Structure (EOR), based on the Incident Command System (ICS) management tool. This provisional structure, formed by our employees, began to guide uniform actions to prevent and combat the advance of the new SARS-CoV-2 virus and to mitigate its consequences on all possible fronts.

We acted quickly and adopted a series of measures to preserve the health of our employees in the operational and administrative areas, such as:  extensive testing, with 631,843 tests being carried out on employees by December 2021; pre-boarding and pre-shift health monitoring; reduction in the number of personnel on board platforms, rigs and other vessels to the extent necessary for the safe operation of each unit; return to face-to-face work implemented in stages (since October 2021), in accordance with the context of the pandemic; among others.

Also, we strongly encourage the vaccination of our entire workforce and reached the percentage of 96.9% of employees fully vaccinated as of December 2021.

In order to ensure that the best practices are also adopted by our suppliers, we monitored the measures and plans of the companies responsible for chartered units and the companies providing services.

Currently, our more than 38,000 employees are covered by our occupational health and safety management system. Also, our contractors also make full use of this system when they are at the company's facilities and are even audited by the Health, Safety and Environment Management Assessment Program (HSE-MAP).

Some actions related to the following health programs are available to employees, which seek to promote comprehensive health, in an approach that goes far beyond occupational health, focusing on health and well-being 365 days a year: Pra Viver Melhor Program; Program for the Control of Chronic Non-Communicable Diseases (CNCD); Mental Health Program; Labor Potential Restoration Program (PRPL);   Oral Health Program; Care program for pregnant women; Healthy Eating Program; Physical Activity Promotion Program; Alcohol, Tobacco, and Drug Prevention Program; and other actions are also provided by Health Services.

In 2021, we have modified our physical activity promotion model, allowing the participation of all employees and dependents.

Among the health events held in 2021, we highlight: Online Health Week (more than 5,800 participations); Health gamification for healthy habits (Health Week Game; Start Game - Leaderships and Challenge 21) with 5,794 participants in total; Live broadcasts with themes about Mental Health (Mental Health in Times of Pandemic; Maternal Mental Health; Mental Health and Valuing Life; and Mental Health for Leadership).

The actions developed to promote health throughout 2021 had positive results on the indicators, such as an increase in the percentage of physically active employees, which rose from 26.15% to 34.99% (December 2020 and 2021 percentages), even in a pandemic context.

Our Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) practices are based on guidelines, norms and corporate standards that make up our HSE management system, which covers all employees in administrative and operational areas, being convergent with the Operational Safety Management System (SGSO), which consists of a set of management practices defined based on Resolution No. 5 of the National Agency for Petroleum, Natural Gas and Biofuels (ANP), which deals with ensuring the operational safety of industrial facilities.

Aiming at the continuous improvement of our HSE management system, specific structuring programs and initiatives are developed, such as the Commitment to Life Program, the Golden Rules, and the Fundamentals of Process Safety.

The Commitment to Life Program, whose first cycle was launched in October 2016, is comprised of structuring projects defined based on a critical analysis of Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) management. With reference to the best market practices, the Program seeks to achieve our Zero Fatalities and Zero Leakage ambitions, and to strengthen our vision of being a reference in Health, Safety and Environment in the industry.

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Since the launch of the first Commitment to Life Program in 2016, we had a significant reduction in the Recordable Injury Frequency Rate (TAR) from 2.15 to 0.54.

In order to support the safety culture, in 2016, ten Golden Safety Rules were defined based on the most recurrent accidents in the oil and gas industry and in our history. Training in the Golden Rules, mandatory for all our employees in Brazil and abroad, is one of the actions provided for in the Commitment to Life Program.

In addition, the Tier1 process accident analysis indicated that the application of a set of “Process Safety Fundamentals” (PSF) would have the potential to eliminate a sizable portion of these events. This result highlighted the importance of this accident prevention strategy and led to efforts to implement this initiative within the scope of the Commitment to Life Program.

PSFs complement the Golden Rules, focusing on Process Safety issues. Five Fundamentals were then defined and brought together in our Process Safety Fundamentals Manual, in which more than 17 thousand employees were trained.

In addition to the mandatory safety and health training provided and automatically assigned to employees, in accordance with external legislation, internal standards and procedures were developed and made available for self-directed learning, with 20 development paths on critical HSE topics, including non-technical skills related to human factors and digital skills. There are more than 200 safety and health educational solutions available in the SIRH (Integrated Human Resources System).

Our goal is to operate within the best global safety standards. One of our top metrics is the Recordable Injury Frequency Rate (TAR) per million man-hours. In 2021, we obtained a TAR of 0.54, our best historical result, 4% below 2020 results, when we reached a TAR of 0.56, below the peer group benchmark. The performance was 23% lower than the target for the year (>0.7). The outstanding result was supported by the programs to reinforce safety management and the Commitment to Life Program and a possible direct consequence of the implementation of the numerous initiatives to promote our safety culture that are reflected in our zero-fatality ambition, defined in our Strategic plan.

Recordable injury frequency rate (TAR)

The Occupational Disease Incidence Rate (TIDO) indicator allows you to monitor the occurrence of occupational diseases in the company. There was no record of any new cases of occupational diseases between 2019 and 2021, according to data available from SIS and SD2000.

In 2021, we had 25 recordable injured employees and 166 recordable injured contractors, generating a TAR of 0.27 and 0.64, respectively. Of that total, 17 of those injured on leave were employed and 102 were contractors, for a TFCA of 0.19 and 0.40 respectively.

In 2021, there were three fatal accidents, all involving third-party employees, in the execution of contracts with Petrobras, resulting in an index of 0.85 (ratio between the number of deaths and the number of hours worked, multiplied by 100,000,000). The first fatality occurred in a rope access tank inspection activity; the second, during the launching of the service boat in the water, for training in oil collection; and the third, during the maintenance process in the compressed air-drying system. In all three cases, the contracted companies involved took over the management of the entire funeral and family (financial and psychological) support process and Petrobras monitored this support so that everything was properly carried out.