Operational Safety
Safe and Secure Work Sites
Canadian Natural follows all regulatory requirements in relation to maintaining safe and secure work sites at all our operations. Each Canadian province has legislation governing the use of private security and investigation services. Canadian Natural ensures all security providers hired for security at Canadian Natural’s locations fully meet provincial licensing requirements. In our Cote d’Ivoire operations, we use the services of a national private security firm who are fully licensed, authenticated, follow the guidelines under the Voluntary Principles on Security and Human Rights, as well as being long standing members of the larger oversight organization ICoCA, Home – ICoCA – International Code of Conduct Association.
Offshore Operations
Our North Sea and Offshore Africa facilities are subject to a range of operating conditions that can present challenges to managing infrastructure. To maintain asset integrity while safeguarding employees and the environment, our International operations have a robust AssetIntegrity Management System that ensures our assets are fit for purpose over their lifetime.
For example, our annual Technical Authority audit program includes visits to all our North Sea platforms and each of our Offshore Africa operations. These internal audits evaluate the effectiveness of our Asset Integrity Management System every year, and findings are used for improvement plans. We also have a Well Integrity Management Policy and procedures that follow industry best practices, and are independently verified.
Our PSM framework addresses regulatory requirements of the UK Health, Safety and Environment (HSE) regulatory body. The United Kingdom’s goal-setting legislative regime is one of the most stringent in the world. Our risk management approach incorporates key performance indicators (KPIs) into all aspects of our business to ensure that our performance is measurable and continuously improved upon.
Our efforts have a particular emphasis on ensuring a consistent approach to Operational Risk Management, which includes a risk-based focus on mature production facilities. Such an approach helps us monitor the integrity of our offshore installations and ensure that performance standards of safety critical components continue to be achieved throughout the life extension phase of our facilities.
Protection Against Cyber Security Threats
Safety is a core value at Canadian Natural and we view protection against cyber security threats as an important element of safeguarding the wellbeing/privacy of employees and securing assets across the Company. A successful cyber-attack has potential to cause operations downtime, reputation damage, lost revenue, and a significant amount of time and cost to recover information.
Our most common cyber threat comes in the form of phishing emails, by which cyber criminals hope to steal employee credentials to access our systems. Canadian Natural has put a strong emphasis on employee education and training in recent years so phishing threats can be quickly recognized and reported. We also work continuously with a service provider that tests the integrity of our public facing cyber services. Their findings allow us to identify potentially vulnerable areas of the system and fix them before harm can be caused.