Safety

Our safety foundations

Our approach to safety is grounded in robust systems and practices: our Operating Management System (OMS)^a and Safety Leadership Principles, along with our implementation of the industry-standard Life-Saving Rules and Process Safety Fundamentals, which were both developed by the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP). 

Our Safety Leadership Principles 

Our five Safety Leadership Principles are designed to guide behaviour and ways of working across bp to drive a strong, consistent safety culture. They are: 

• We genuinely care about each other 
• We will not compromise our focus on safety 
• We encourage and recognize the need to speak up 
• We understand how work actually happens 
• We learn why mistakes occur and respond supportively

They are informed by human performance and support a culture of care by helping us understand how people interact with their working environment and may sometimes make mistakes related to safety. In 2025 we continued our ongoing work to help employees and contractors incorporate the principles into their daily work. 

Life-Saving Rules

We recognize the value of industry standardization and consistent rules to help improve safety performance, including IOGP’s Life-Saving Rules.

In 2025 we gained new insights about the effectiveness of the Rules in bp. We have also embedded the Rules in a wider range of self-verification tasks in our production & operations business and included them in bp shipping’s new control of work tool. Through site visits, our safety teams assessed integration of the Rules at our Whiting refinery and several terminals, pipelines and projects across the US.

Process Safety Fundamentals

In bp-operated businesses most at risk of process safety events (PSEs), we are embedding the IOGP’s Process Safety Fundamentals. They set out 10 principles designed to help improve awareness of process safety risks and many of them reinforce processes within our OMS. 

Personal safety in 2025

We deeply regret the four fatalities and three life-changing injuries that occurred in 2025. Three employees in our TravelCenters of America business^b died at work – two while carrying out emergency roadside assistance and one while servicing a truck. A contractor in our Thorntons retail business died after falling from a ladder. 

One employee and two contractors suffered life-changing injuries. An employee in our TravelCenters of America business and a contractor in our Mauritania and Senegal business suffered hand injuries. And a contractor in our North Sea business sustained a head injury during a crane lifting activity. 

We offered our support to the bereaved families and the injured workers.

We know we must maintain our efforts to continue improving our safety culture and performance, by applying the IOGP Life-Saving Rules and our Safety Leadership Principles. 

Driving safety

Driving is one of the biggest personal safety risks we face at bp. In 2025 five severe vehicle accidents occurred (2024 5). The number of kilometres driven fell by 19% during the same period. 

Process safety

Our combined reported tier 1 and tier 2 PSEs^c have decreased for the last 12 years, apart from in 2019. There were 27 PSEs in 2025 (2024 38), of which five were tier 1 (2024 3) and 22 were tier 2 (2024 35).

In 2025 the number of reported oil spills^d increased to 110 compared with 96 in 2024 and 100 in 2023. 

Emergency preparedness

The scale and geographical spread of our operations mean we must be ready to respond to a range of possible disruptions, including emergencies. We maintain disaster recovery, crisis, and business continuity management plans and work to build day-to-day response capabilities to support local management of incidents. We regularly test our plans and preparedness through exercises that simulate real-life situations. In 2025 we conducted 37 large-scale exercises.

Footnotes

a For recently acquired businesses, there is typically a transition period while bp’s operating standards, as set out in our OMS, are integrated or aligned. 
 

b At the time of publication (March 2026), as part of the transition period for recently acquired businesses, safety reporting processes were still being integrated into bp’s safety reporting processes. As such, data from Archaea Energy, TravelCenters of America, Lightsource bp, bp bioenergy, X Convenience and new Eagle Ford assets in bpx energy are not included in 2025 reported data. 

c Tier 1 events are losses of primary containment from a process of greatest consequence, such as causing harm to a member of the workforce, damage to equipment from a fire or explosion, a community impact, or exceeding defined quantities (per API RP 754 tier 1 definitions). Tier 2 events are those of lesser consequence (per API RP 754 tier 2 definitions).  

d The number of accidental or unplanned losses of hydrocarbon from primary containment from a bp or contractor operation, irrespective of any secondary containment or recovery. Oil spills > 1bbl are defined as any liquid hydrocarbon release of more than, or equal to, one barrel (159 litres, equivalent to 42 US gallons).