The global extraction and energy industries and the engineering and construction companies that support their activities increasingly operate in challenging and high risk areas. Their geographical remoteness presents barriers to ensuring timely access to medical services and the nature of their activities is high risk. Further, the security climate in many of the countries is hostile.
It was anticipated that given these risk factors, the data would show that these sectors have more rigorous programs in place to ensure they meet their Duty of Care obligations than other industries operating in major metropolitan areas. Surprisingly, the ‘average’ findings for the industries in this subsector showed no statistically significant difference with the overall worldwide Duty of Care baseline. The spread of the data within the industry subsectors indicates inconsistencies in the application of Duty of Care when it comes to the health, safety and security of cross border employees in this industry. This provides opportunities for improvement for the industry as a whole in assuming its Duty of Care obligations.
These industries are diversified in terms of sectors such as oil and gas, power, renewable energy, mining and metals and major infrastructure projects. Within each sector, there are different phases of exploration, planning, developing and operating. However, they have common challenges in terms of Duty of Care due to industry-specific risks, locations around the world and complex regulatory and environment requirements, so they were grouped together to assess the Duty of Care practices. The global Extraction, Energy, Engineering and Construction industries share six common characteristics including geographically remote worksites, high risk security environments, an embedded safety culture, varying interpretations of risk, a complex value chain and high reputational risk.