More on Communities

The Human Environment
Maintaining the health of our natural environment is a central concern of the oil and natural gas industry—and maintaining the health of our human environment is just as important. Oil and natural gas companies work hard to protect the health and safety of everyone involved—from industry workers to consumers to schoolchildren.

Protecting Workers
The industry’s commitment to safety begins at the source, protecting the men and women who find, recover—from deep underground or underwater locations—transport, and transform oil and natural gas into products that we use every single day. All segments of the O&G industry follow rigorous safety standards, maintaining and improving an outstanding safety record. Job-related illnesses and injuries are much less frequent in the oil and natural gas industry than in the U.S. private sector as a whole—and the industry is becoming even safer.  For example, the rate for the oil and natural gas industry was 3.4 per 100 full-time workers compared with 4.4 for the entire U.S. private sector.  To learn more, see Workplace Safety for the U.S. Oil and Natural Gas Industry, 1997 – 2006.

The Right to Know
As public awareness of environmental issues grows, Americans want to know what we can do to help, and how we may be harmed. The oil and natural gas industry believes strongly that the public has a right to know about possible environmental hazards.  So when the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) challenged producers and importers of certain high production volume (HPV) chemicals to participate in a voluntary inventory, oil and natural gas companies were glad to help.  In response to EPA’s challenge, the O&G industry formed the Petroleum HPV Testing Group.  This group helps EPA gather important information about the toxicity of HPV chemicals produced or imported by the oil and natural gas industry.  The information gathered by EPA and the industry is made available to the public—in keeping with their shared commitment to providing Americans with honest, complete information.  To learn more, visit the Petroleum HPV Testing Group website.

Community Commitment
Oil and natural gas companies work closely with over 400 local, regional, and national groups to enrich the communities in which they operate.  An example of the oil and natural gas industry’s commitment to community can be found in Long Beach, California—one of America’s most beautiful coastal cities.  Its famous harbor is the site of one of the nation’s largest oil fields.  Together with the city and the state of California, several oil companies worked to tap this great natural resource without harming the environment, discouraging tourism, or disrupting the busy Port of Long Beach.  The result is astonishing.  Located on four man-made islands, lush with plants and waterfalls, a round-the-clock drilling, production, and oil-treating operation takes place so unobtrusively that longtime residents forget it’s there.  In addition to providing America with millions of barrels of oil, the Long Beach operation provides revenue for the city’s tourism and recreation programs—and shows that oil drilling and production can be conducted in a safe, clean, and aesthetically pleasing way.