Safety is a fundamental component of our culture. We do not take shortcuts when it comes to the health and safety of our employees or those around us.

To support our efforts to be incident-free, we have a suite of programs embedded into our overall operational management system including our Eight GEMS (Getting Everyone Managing Safety), HSE Excellence, and Hand and Finger Injury Prevention programs (SASB NR0104 12).

To learn more, please visit the Safety and Service Quality page.

We are committed to protecting the health and safety of our employees, visitors, and contractors.

Weatherford encourages workforce wellness through benefits and wellness programs, educating our workforce about healthy lifestyle choices, providing resources about potential health hazards, and creating easy opportunities for wellness. Our Wellness Program in the US offers opportunities for employees to receive healthcare premium credits by completing wellness incentives such as a biometric screening, wellness assessment, and a preventive/wellness visit.

The loss of resources and potential impacts to the environment through uncontrolled releases to land, water, and air requires our attention.

Encouraging better reporting on spills, and understanding why spills occur, have been key areas of focus of the organization for the last several years. Internally we capture data on all forms of spills and monitor intensity of spills based on the number of spills and volume released per spill by total man hours worked. Our robust incident investigations, root cause analysis, and corrective action programs, which cut across all QHSSE disciplines, have allowed us to identify trends in spill occurrences and work assiduously at reducing not just the overall number of spills, but the volumes released during spill events.

We achieved a 50% reduction in the total number of spills and a 20% reduction in hydrocarbon spills greater than a barrel between 2016 and 2017. In addition, we reduced the occurrence of spills outside of containment with 17% fewer spills over a barrel being uncontained.

On customer locations, the number of spills greater than a barrel has also dropped by 31.57%, and the volumes released decreased by 76.6% (compared to 2016).

Case Study

Mina abdulla, kuwait

WEATHERFORD 2017 ENVIRONMENTAL ENTREPRENEURS
AWARDS WINNER

1st place Most Innovative Environmental Project

Enhancement of Spill prevention controls in Reciprocating Rod Lift systems

The project aimed to reduce spills by introducing engineering controls to the well control process.

After thorough investigation, the team in Kuwait identified all weak points that could potentially lead to a well failure, as well as potential controls. The team established that existing barriers could be upgraded to guarantee a safer and faster response in the case of a spill during recirprocating rod lift operations. 

The team found that the existing barriers for spill prevention could be upgraded to include higher innovative engineering controls that offer a safer and faster response in case of spills occurring during reciprocating rod lift operations.

Since the upgrades were installed, no spills have been reported.

Water management at Weatherford is driven by global standards, procedures, and protocols and is supported by our Water Tenet, one of the Four Tenets of Weatherford’s Environmental Program. Our Four Tenets program — which encompasses the management of our waste, water, land, and energy resources — is underpinned by global management standards.

We ensure that water quality outside of and within our facilities is maintained to regulatory required standards. Where no standards exist, we consider them to be limited in the ability to protect human health and the environment, and we set our own water quality standards.

Case Study

Agua fria base - puebla, mexico 

WEATHERFORD 2017 ENVIRONMENTAL ENTREPRENEURS
AWARDS WINNER

2nd place Most Potential for Positive Financial Impact

Reuse of Treated Sanitary Wastewater for Watering of Roads and Landscaping

The base at Puebla does not have municipal drainage service, so they have always relied on approved vendors to collect and dispose of sanitary water. The facility designed a treatment system for the sanitary water generated at the facility to reduce wastewater disposal costs and promote water conservation, while remaining in compliance with country regulations.

The environmental authority approved the use of treated wastewater on the roads and around the base for irrigation purposes. The project resulted in cost savings of approximately $11,000,000 USD from January to September, allowing full payment back for the installation of the treatment system in 9 months. Water for the roads and irrigation is now essentially free.

The risks to our operations resulting from water scarcity or through the quality of available water are of key concern to Weatherford.

In 2017, we performed a detailed global water sensitivity risk analysis and have identified that 44% of our facilities are located within areas affected by low levels of water availability based on Aqueduct, the World Resources Institute’s global water risk mapping tool.

We performed a deeper analysis to further refine our risk using the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (wbcsd) Global Water Tool and the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organization’s (FAO) AQUASTAT tool.  

When integrating the results of our 2017 Global Water Survey, we identified a total of 12 high risk sites. Over the course of 2018 we will work with these locations to establish appropriate water risk mitigation processes.

We are constantly looking to reduce water use, improve the quality of our discharges, and move away from discharging water. 

The protection of biodiversity is implemented through our site selection procedures, the management of our operational footprint, and the execution of our activities. Potential impacts to biodiversity are identified through environmental aspect, impact, and risk assessments of our facilities, products, and operations.

These evaluations are performed across the organization starting with our highest potential risk product lines, i.e. those using the largest volumes of liquids, requiring the largest physical footprints, and using the largest number of equipment.

In 2018, we launched our Biodiversity Policy which outlines Weatherford’s approach and commitment to conserving biodiversity. 

In 2016, we launched our Re³think Waste campaign. This initiative involved all of our facilities holding an Environmental Meeting to discuss the importance of waste to Weatherford and engaged employees in an "opportunity hunt" for the identification of waste-reduction opportunities.

Our Waste Management Standard’s Waste Hierarchy lists avoidance and reduction as the first measures to take, followed by a requirement that any remaining waste be reused, recycled, or recovered — in that order. Only once those options have been fully exhausted will we send waste to a landfill for disposal.

This has resulted in our people consistently looking for and identifying ways to reduce the amount of hazardous waste generated, such as changing out hazardous materials for non-hazardous, or changing processes to eliminate or reduce the need for hazardous materials altogether. For example, using eco-friendly degreasers rather than solvent-based reduces the associated hazardous waste from contaminated rags or containers.

The overall effect has allowed a 39% decrease in total waste generated in 2017 from 2016.

Case Study

GREENVILLE, USA

WEATHERFORD 2017 ENVIRONMENTAL ENTREPRENEURS
AWARDS WINNER

1st place Most Potential for Positive Financial Impact

Waste Disposal Plan to Reduce Cost and Environmental Impacts

It was determined that a local vendor was making multiple trips to haul multiple dumpsters from the facility each week, 8-10 times per month per building. The facility initiated a project to reduce the cost of trash disposal, reduce the number of loads being hauled from the facility, and reduce environmental impacts.

Greenville implemented a new disposal plan that centered around waste compactors, which effectively reduced the amount of trips, transportation costs, air emissions, vehicle traffic, and lowered the potential for safety-related incidents. The facility went from an average of 20 shipments per month to two.

We implemented our Energy Wise program in 2015 to reduce energy use and explain ways to implement our Energy Management Standard (SASB: NR0 104), and the effects have been significant.

Our electricity normalized to revenue decreased by 3% from 2016 to 2017. This is based on 64% of our facilities globally reporting energy use consistently in 2017.

The normalization of the data reveals that electricity reduction is not due to closures of facilities, but due to the focus by our facilities taking up the challenge to implement low-cost/no-cost energy reduction opportunities which were identified during the Energy Wise "opportunity hunt."  In addition, the move to data being collected through the financial systems has assisted in achieving a higher quality data set than in previous years.

Normalized data on natural gas shows an increase in use compared to 2016 while propane use has gone down. It is considered that the observed increase in natural gas usage is actually due to improved data reporting.

In the last quarter of 2017, we began the formal risk assessment of all of our operational facilities from a Health, Safety and Environmental perspective. As a starting point, each facility created a ‘Facility Profile’. The information from the Facility Profiles will allow us to establish HSE risks and opportunities, as well as understand the good practices being implemented by our workforce.

Based on the initial Facility Profiles received, we know that 1.1% our facilities use renewable energy sources directly on the site, solar power and geothermal, and 4% of our facilities already have agreements in place to purchase renewable energy from their energy providers.

Managing our resources efficiently reduces our reliance on raw materials and reduces waste.

Streamlining our suppliers and improving our asset management has significantly improved our resource management. Weatherford suppliers and subcontractors are required to comply with environmental rules, regulations, and standards applicable to their operations, and observe environmentally-conscious practices in all locations through our Supplier Code of Conduct. 

Internally, we are working on an Eco-Labelling program which assesses our products by a strict set of environmental criteria. The criteria encompass water use, waste reduction, the potential for uncontrolled releases, energy efficiency, lifespan, use of renewable energy, and use of recycled materials amongst others. Our products will start to bear this label in 2018.

Weatherford encourages all employees to reduce water use at both Weatherford and client sites. Each year, we become more efficient in our approach to reducing water use.

In 2017, we launched our WaterLess campaign which encouraged all employees to reduce water use, protect water quality, and support our Water Management Standard (SASB: NR0104). The campaign gained further support on March 22, 2017, when we celebrated the United Nations World Water Day with the theme of Why Waste Water? We distributed a video and message to all of our employees encouraging water conservation, and also publicly communicated this on our social media channels.

As part of our focus on water, we launched a Global Water Survey aimed at identifying what water sources are used, where water is used, what waste waters are generated, how much is reused or recycled, and where opportunities exist for better water savings (GRI EN8).

Through this exercise, we established that most of our water comes from public supply, although some facilities use groundwater either as a supplemental or sole water source. We also identified that some sites use surface water and even rainwater as primary water supplies. 

In 2018, we will identify greater opportunities for reducing water use and recycling based on stated discharge routes, regulatory requirements, cost, and water sensitivities. As part of this initiative, we will continue to focus on increasing recycling systems within washbays.

Case Study

MACAE, BRAZIL

WEATHERFORD 2017 ENVIRONMENTAL ENTREPRENEURS
AWARDS WINNER

2nd place Most Innovative Environmental Project

Foam Maker – Reducing Degreaser Consumption and the Environmental Impact

A simple project yet revolutionary change was proposed for the TRS wash bay, which sought to reduce degreaser consumption by developing a device that makes foam to wash the equipment.

The device consisted of a 300 liter tank with a ¾ pneumatic pump, two 20 meter (3/4") pneumatic hoses and one 3/8 hose with 3 meters. The device picks up the already diluted degreaser with water and turns it into foam, becoming much more active and efficient. The foam does not run as the liquid does, thus avoiding loss of liquid.

The benefits also included a reduction in the time spent to wash the TRS equipment, reduced environmental impact, and improved the quality of the wash process.

The technician who came up with the idea reused parts, most of which were available at the base, to build this device. Only a small part was purchased, and the system was built at almost zero cost to Weatherford.

In 2015 we launched our Energy Wise program, which engaged our entire workforce in identifying opportunities to reduce energy use in our buildings. Implementation of those opportunities has helped us achieve a nearly 36% reduction in electricity use normalized for revenue and a reduction of over 55% in natural gas and propane usage normalized for revenue, leading to significant reductions in our greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions and substantial cost savings.

As a leading oilfield services provider, we intimately understand the importance of delivering consistent quality products and services to our customers.

We understand the importance of ongoing training and competency assurance of our people and are very focused on improving our training programs. Additionally, our Operational Excellence and Performance System (OEPS) equips employees with the tools and technical resources needed to help conduct each job safely and efficiently.

At Weatherford, we take environmental compliance very seriously. In 2017, we launched a global Environmental Permit Management system which is designed to ensure any environmental permit, license, authorization, or consent is tracked, monitored, and communicated. In 2018, we will be strengthening our regulatory compliance auditing process and increasing compliance auditing frequency.

In 2017, we recorded only 16 Notices of Violation (NOV) with a total just over $5,000 USD in fines. This is an 11% reduction in NOVs received from 2016.

All of our QHSSE standards, including the Global Environmental Standards, were created to encompass common regulatory requirements across the countries in which we operate, especially those in the USA, Canada, European Union and the United Kingdom. OEPS is also designed to comply with all major International Standards including ISO 14001, 9001, 18001 and API Q1 and Q2. 

In addition, some of our facilities opt to gain external certification of their Environmental (as well as Quality and Health and Safety processes), and therefore over 19% of our facilities are certified to ISO14001. Many of the certifications are multiple certifications, encompassing ISO 9001 and ISO 18001, and often the certifications are for multiple product lines within a location or a country.

We routinely check to ensure quality is being delivered through monitoring practices such as the Verification Program. This program enables our leadership to use our Verified App to independently audit strategic locations to ensure OEPS implementation progress is at the desired level. We also conduct full OEPS audits on select facilities in every region each year to ensure that our implementation has been done correctly and is being used in practice. 

In 2017, a total of 18 full OEPS Verification Audits focused on the implementation of the Environmental Standards. These full verification audits supported 85 audits performed via the Verification Program.