Health, Safety & Environment

NESR recognizes that an essential factor in its business success is the emphasis it places on Health, Safety, and Environment (HSE). HSE is a fundamental element in all our business activities and an integral part of service delivery workflows from all levels of employees and contractors. NESR’s leaders are responsible and accountable for driving a strong HSE culture by ensuring effective implementation of our standards.

We comply with the most stringent of the legal, international, national, customer, and other applicable safety and ecological standards and requirements wherever we do business. Ultimately, our aim is for NESR to become the region’s leader in HSE.

There is nothing more important than the safety of our employees, so operational excellence begins with safety leadership across all levels of the organization. As such, all employees are fully empowered and responsible to stop any work activity if they observe unsafe acts or conditions.

We will demonstrate our HSE commitment by:

• Setting clear HSE objectives and measurable, progressive targets as part of our business performance, and monitoring performance for continuous improvements;
• Identifying, managing, and mitigating environmental risks, including the risks associated with climate change;
• Driving HSE behaviors with a “no defects” mindset, and rewarding outstanding HSE performance and initiatives;
• Eliminating HSE events and accidents with a strong reporting culture and effective investigation of near-misses;
• Training our workforce on our HSE standards to increase awareness of HSE risks and prevention methods;
• Effectively communicating with our stakeholders our HSE policies, standards, programs and performance;
• Protecting the health, safety and security of our workforce at all times;
• Meeting international, national and customer standards and requirements;
• Protecting the environment through responsible planning, and providing solutions aimed at decreasing the environmental impact of our business, including reducing our carbon footprint to limit the effects of climate change;
• Ensuring HSE considerations are factored into the design, engineering, and deployment our services and products; and
• Maintaining an updated response plan to minimize the effect of any emergency, business disruption, or crisis.

Applicability

Every NESR employee and contractor is accountable to ensure compliance with this policy. We will update this policy regularly to ensure that it continues to reflect our strong commitment and focus on HSE.

Safety Performance

NESR’s commitment to HSE is contained within our Code of Conduct, which also details the Company’s expectations and regulatory compliance requirements for all NESR employees, business partners, suppliers and contractors.

NESR recognizes that an essential factor in its business success is the emphasis it places on HSE. HSE is a fundamental element in all our business activities and an integral part of service delivery workflows from all levels of employees and contractors. NESR’s leaders are responsible for driving a strong HSE culture by ensuring effective implementation of our standards.

We comply with the most stringent of the legal, international, national, customer, and other applicable safety standards and requirements wherever we do business. Management communicates our HSE philosophy to all employees, customers, contractors, and third parties associated with our business by walking through the key rules and providing the relevant HSE materials. NESR does not engage any employee or contractor without evidence of HSE program compliance, and to ensure that our employees work in the safest conditions possible, we conduct HSE leadership courses across our operations for line managers and field supervisors.

Our operations are conducted in accordance with industry standard certification programs, including those for quality management (ISO 9001), environmental management (ISO 14001) and health and safety management (ISO 45001 or OHSAS 18001). NESR’s integrated QHSE management system is aligned with ISO 9001/14001/45001. Operations in most of the countries where we do business are ISO 45001 or OSHAS 18001 certified by external certification bodies.

The Company captures safety performance data through the online HSE software deployed across all our operations. All incidents are investigated by line management supported by the HSE function.

NESR uses the International Association of Oil and Gas Producers definitions and reporting criteria to classify HSE data. Work-related employee and contractor injuries are included in the data.

All our employees and contractors are not only empowered, but expected, to intervene or stop work without fear of reprisal if they observe any unsafe action or condition at the work site or have concerns regarding the QHSE controls in place.

Operational Integrity

One of NESR’s business fundamentals is to deliver products and services that meet or exceed our customers’ expectations and objectives while complying with legal, international, national, and customer standards and requirements. We promote a model of operational integrity where employees and contractors act honorably and responsibly, and we leverage that integrity to produce the highest quality of service for our customers by focusing on delivering best-in-class operational processes.

A key measure used by the Company to track the service quality performance is the nonproductive time rate. Any reduction in the nonproductive time rate reflects operations being conducted more efficiently, which may ultimately result in reduced emissions by both NESR and our clients.

We also use checklists to further improve operational reliability and efficiency. Checklists are visual or oral aids that help crew members overcome the limitations of short-term memory to perform action or verification items without referencing a manual. These checklists are kept as short as possible to minimize diversion of the crew’s attention while performing their responsibilities.

NESR’s operations are conducted in accordance with industry standard certification programs, and operations in most of the countries where we do business are ISO 9001/API Q1 or Q2 certified by external certification bodies.

Management communicates our quality philosophy to employees, business partners, suppliers and contractors by providing the relevant rules and HSE material, and each NESR organization must provide positive evidence of compliance with the quality system. Regular audits and service quality meetings are conducted to review adherence to the quality processes.

As part of NESR’s process safety procedures, barriers as part of well integrity are crucial to reducing the risk of uncontrolled release of formation fluids. NESR has a portfolio of cementing technologies and logging tools for ensuring and evaluating well integrity. Zonal isolation is created and maintained in the wellbore through the cementing process. Cement supports and protects well casings and helps prevent fluids in one zone from mixing with fluids in another zone. The cement systems that help establish zonal isolation work in a variety of reservoir conditions and remain in place throughout the life of the well.

Employee Wellbeing and COVID-19 Response

NESR promotes employees’ and contractors’ wellbeing by providing various HSE trainings (e.g., hygiene, ergonomics) health campaigns, and awareness sessions to promote healthy lifestyles for both the employees and their families and to reduce illnesses in the workplace.

From the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, actions undertaken to protect the health of our employees and their families included:

• Restricting travel and prohibiting large gatherings and corporate events; 
• Splitting the workforce in different locations to minimize overcrowding; 
• Quarantining employees who have been exposed to COVID-19 or have traveled recently;
• Restricting outside visitors to our offices;
• Encouraging virtual meetings; 
• Allowing employees the flexibility to work from home using virtual communication tools; 
• Adjusting shifts to minimize crowding in common areas; 
• Monitoring employee body temperatures at company sites; 
• Providing personal protective equipment to employees, including gloves, face masks and hand sanitizers; 
• Regularly sanitizing workspaces and installing plastic dividers in open areas;
• Developing and communicating guidelines and information on health precautions;
• Providing training sessions and online certifications to ensure that employees are appropriately educated on the virus.

NESR recognizes that balanced living relies on total wellbeing, which may have been negatively impacted during the COVID-19 global pandemic. As part of the wellness package offered through its health insurance, NESR is now offering 24 hour per day access to an Employee Support Program which includes free, confidential counseling with professionals, resources, and information to help employees and their families deal with unhealthy amounts of stress, distraction, or worry and regain focus.

Moreover, we developed a phone application to provide employees with the latest COVID-19 updates, Company emergency contact details, and the ability to complete the employee Health Self-Declaration on a weekly basis.

We also rolled out COVID-19 safety chats across NESR to interactively address COVID-19 topics during pre-job meetings.

In July 2020, NESR rolled out e-learning across the organization. This gives employees access to 3000 online learning courses, which span across various business and functional aspects including HSE. HSE training hours delivered to employees in 2019 and the first half of 2020 are specified below:

Covid-19 Response