Determinants of IOGP Life-Saving Rules Compliance Among Nigerian Petroleum Industry Workers

Life-saving rules (LSRs) are a set of defined rules that support and complement general site-specific safety rules and procedures (SRPs). LSRs are popular in the oil & gas (O&G) industry and are part of the safety management system framework designed to prevent incidents in the workplace. Complying with LSRs ensures its intent of incident prevention, drives the goal of creating decent work, economic growth and sustainable development. With the continuum of incidents in the industry, total compliance with LSRs and SRPs still remains a mirage. Even though the introduction of LSRs in the O&G caused a paradigm shift from fair to better safety performance, incident investigations continue to unveil cases of violations/non-compliance. In the space of continuous improvement, it becomes expedient to determine possible causes of these LSRs and SRPs non-compliance, with a view to nipping the causal factors in the bud. A descriptive cross-sectional study was conducted to determine the factors affecting the level of workers compliance with IOGP LSRs in selected O&G companies operating in Delta State, Nigeria. The research recruited 317 sharp end workers and selected leaders, through a multistage sampling technique. A semi-structured, self-administered questionnaire was used as instrument for data collection. The study in its findings was able to elicit numerous compliance determinants arising from socio-demography, occupational and organisational factors. These factors are barriers to strengthen if the goal of total compliance and zero incident must be achieved in the workplace. The study recommends that management should comply with Thomas Legge's aphorisms 1 & 4 on SRPs and design training programmes for employees to be imparted with requisite knowledge needed for compliance, commit to safety and lead a positive safety culture to drive continuous improvement. Furthermore, there is the need to pursue total compliance with LSRs, SRPs and any site-specific safety rules to achieve zero incidents in the O&G industry.