Health & Safety

At Noble Energy, safety is central to the job of every employee and contractor. We foster a culture based on genuine care and compassion that encourages individual responsibility for protecting people and the environment.

We provide a solid foundation for responsible operations with safety and environmental training. We promote individual vigilance and responsibility by assigning every person working at a Noble Energy facility the authority – and duty – to stop work when necessary to protect health, safety or the environment. We strive for continuous improvement through teamwork and collaboration. The Noble Safety Council, made up of representatives from various areas of operations, meets quarterly to share safety-related experiences, issues and concerns. They draw on shared experiences to advise management on fostering a safety and health-conscious culture. Area Safety Committees work together to improve EH&S performance within each specific region.

Noble Energy has developed Safe Work and Operating Practices for its personnel. Designed to provide a framework for effective health, safety, environmental and sustainability practices, these guidelines include detailed plans, procedures and strategies for the protection of people and the environment. In addition to procedures that govern day-to-day operations, our practices include job analyses to proactively identify and address potential health and safety hazards. We require third-party contractors to follow their own Safe Work and Operating Practices, which must meet the same general requirements.

Noble Energy develops and implements incident management plans at each of its operations and also at the corporate level in order to coordinate emergency response at all of its facilities. The plans contain provisions for dealing with potential emergencies and clearly assign authority and duties to ensure timely and effective response.

All personnel at Noble Energy operated facilities are trained to perform their functions in a manner that protects people, the environment and equipment. We require our contractors to provide comparable training to their employees before they start work at Noble Energy facilities and to submit documentation or verification of adequate training.

Noble Energy is committed to a safe, healthful and environmentally responsible work environment. Recognizing the role of our contractors in achieving EH&S excellence, it is intended that our contractors work under conditions and rules that are at least as protective as those governing our own employees. While we do not take control of a contractor’s safety program or relieve any contractor of its safety responsibility, we have developed a separate Contractor Safety Management Plan to achieve compliance with this element of the GMS. Our plan includes the evaluation of contractor safety performance prior to contract award through the ISNetworld Contractor Database.

Dedicated to effective EH&S communication with our contractor workforce, we are working with various business units to host several contractor symposiums in strategic areas throughout 2009. These symposiums will communicate the value that we place on each individual, the environment and our communities, and they will underscore our expectations for superior EH&S performance from our contract workforce. The symposiums also will introduce resources designed to help our small contractors develop effective EH&S programs within their own organizations. We will invite our larger key contractors as well as industry experts to share their perspectives and approaches to EH&S challenges. Through these symposiums, Noble Energy will partner with our contractor workforce to improve our EH&S performance throughout our operations.

In 2011, Noble Energy received the Colorado Oil & Gas Conservation Commission's (COGCC) Outstanding Operator Award for environmental protection. In both 2008 and 2009, Noble Energy received the prestigious Mineral Management Service SAFE Award for its 2007 and 2008 operations in the Gulf of Mexico. In July 2009, we were also awarded the COGCC 2008 Outstanding Oil and Gas Operations Award for environmental protection and safe operation in the Project Rulison area of the Piceance Basin.