Marathon's HES policy and associated principles guide its health and safety activities and improvement efforts. The full policy and principles are available on the Company's Web site ( www.marathon.com).
Commitment to Safety
Marathon is committed to creating a safe work environment and works diligently
to achieve an accident-free, incident-free workplace throughout its operations.
Unfortunately, even with comprehensive improvement efforts, four employee fatalities occurred in four separate work-related incidents in 2007. Marathon responded by conducting internal investigations and sharing results to prevent future incidents. Based on lessons learned, new procedures or other preventive measures were put in place as appropriate to augment safety. At the corporate level, a panel of Marathon managers and external experts was formed to explore safety enhancements. During 2008, Marathon organizations will develop action plans to address the panel's findings. The Company continues to cooperate fully with the United States Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and other authorities investigating the fatalities.
Occupational Injury and Illness Rates
Marathon uses a variety of methodologies to raise awareness and improve the safety
performance of employees and contractors. These include communication, training
and education, mentoring, evaluation of leading and lagging metrics, emergency
preparedness, behavior-based safety (BBS) programs, coaching and recognition. The
Company investigates injuries and incidents, reviews near misses and implements
corrective actions. These programs are the cornerstone of Marathon's safety culture.
Marathon reinforces the priority it places on safety with all of its service providers. Contractors worldwide accounted for more than 60 percent of the Company's total work hours in 2007. The Company reviews prospective contractors' HES records and safety programs as part of the selection process. Marathon requires contractors to comply with its HES policies, standards and guidelines, and monitors their HES performance on the job. Together, Marathon and its contractors strive for excellence in health, safety and environmental performance.
Occupational injuries and illnesses worldwide are tracked in accordance with the OSHA Recordkeeping Standard. The Company uses the Total Recordable Incident Rate (TRIR) and Days Away Rate (DAR) as the primary metrics to track safety performance and illnesses related to the work environment. These rates represent the number of cases per 200,000 work hours (equivalent to the hours worked by 100 full-time workers in a year). Marathon reported three illness-related recordable incidents in 2007.
The Company's combined TRIR for employees and contractors (excluding SSA) was 0.87 in 2007. The combined DAR was 0.09. Comparable TRIR and DAR values for 2006 were 0.99 and 0.17.
The Upstream organization improved its combined TRIR for employees and contractors to 1.06, compared to 1.25 in 2006, by shifting to leading indicators that help forecast performance, implementing Veley's Problem Solving Index (vPSI) to evaluate root causes of incidents and implement corrective actions, and completing its Safety Leadership program. The DAR improved to 0.08 in 2007, compared to 0.25 in 2006.
Excluding SSA, the Downstream organization's TRIR and DAR were 0.72 and 0.12, respectively, for employees and contractors combined. These compare to a 2006 TRIR of 0.73 and DAR of 0.09. SSA reduced its TRIR to 3.96 in 2007, its lowest since 1998. The DAR for SSA was 1.45 in 2007, an improvement from 1.47 in 2006.
