THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
JULY 30, 2007, 2:05 PM ET Shell appointed a global safety executive, after suffering 37 fatalities in 2006, more than double the number had by its major competitors.Kieron McFadyen, a 20-year company veteran, was appointed to instill safety standards and assess risk, especially for remote locations, where the majority of fatalities occurred. As our portfolio changes we go into new areas where we are not familiar with the culture, he told Dow Jones Newswires. We need to go through the assumption that it aint going to be easier.
The 37 deaths last year compared with seven at BP, 10 at Exxon Mobil Corp. and 12 at Chevron Corp. But as we discussed earlier this year in Energy Roundup, these tallies arent necessarily the best measure of a companys safety record, as they dont account for factors like possible differences in the way companies count deaths.