Glossary

ACIDIFICATION: Acidification occurs when certain gases emitted to the atmosphere by various processes react to enhance the natural acidity (pH) of precipitation. This precipitation (commonly termed “acid rain”) can have impacts upon plant life, rivers and lakes (and associated aquatic plants and animals) and man-made structures.

AHC: Amerada Hess Corporation.

AHL: Amerada Hess Limited. A wholly owned subsidiary of Amerada Hess Corporation, engaged in the exploration and production of oil and gas from the U.K. Continental Shelf.

API: American Petroleum Institute, an oil industry trade association.

API AVERAGE: API Average is an average of U.S. occupational injuries and illnesses information involving over 100 companies in a publicly available annual survey developed by the API.

BBL: Barrel. A measure of volume used commonly in the oil and gas industry. 1 barrel = 42 gallons = 218.2 liters.

BIODIVERSITY: or Biological Diversity. The variety of life in all its forms, levels and combinations. Includes ecosystem diversity, species diversity, and genetic diversity.

BOE: Barrels of Oil Equivalent. Unit of measurement for hydrocarbon production which combines oil and gas production.

BOED: Barrels of oil equivalent per day.

CH₄: Methane. A colorless, nonpoisonous, flammable gas that is the primary component of natural gas. Methane has been identified as a “greenhouse” gas.

CO: Carbon monoxide. A colorless, odorless, poisonous gas produced by incomplete fossil fuel combustion.

CO₂ : Carbon dioxide. A colorless, odorless gas produced by burning fossil fuels. CO₂ is a product of complete combustion and is referred to as a “greenhouse” gas, because it can trap heat in the earth's atmosphere.

COGENERATION: a process that converts a fuel into both thermal and electrical energy. The thermal energy may be in the form of steam, hot water, hot air, or any combination of the three.

CONVENTIONAL GASOLINE: Gasoline sold in areas where reformulated gasoline is not required. Conventional gasoline resembles gasoline produced in 1990 and is not required to meet the emissions reductions requirements set for reformulated gasoline.

CRUDE CHARGE: The amount of crude oil processed per day by a refinery.

CUTTINGS: Small fragments of formation rock brought to the surface by the flow of drilling mud during the drilling of a well.

DANGEROUS OCCURRENCES: An occurrence which could have resulted in a reportable injury as defined by RIDDOR.

DRILLING MUD: A mixture of clay, water, chemical additives and weighting materials that cool and lubricate the drill bit, carry rock cuttings from the well and control natural formation pressures.

DTI: Department of Trade and Industry, U.K. offshore environmental regulatory agency.

E&P: Exploration and Production.

EARL: East Asia Response Pte Ltd, international oil spill response organization based in Singapore.

EARTHWATCH: The Earthwatch Institute is an international non-profit organization, founded in Boston and now with offices in England, Australia and Japan. Its mission is to promote the sustainable conservation of natural resources and cultural heritage by creating partnerships among scientists, the general public, educators, and businesses.

EHS&SR: Environment, Health, Safety and Social Responsibility.

EMS: Environmental Management System. A system which enables an organisation to manage its environmental interactions.

ENAA: Europe, North Africa, Asia: Amerada Hess E&P Business Unit.

EPA: Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. environmental regulatory agency.

FLUIDIZED CATALYTIC CRACKING UNIT: A primary conversion unit in most integrated refineries. It can convert heavier oils, such as Heavy Gas Oil, Vacuum Gas Oil, or Coker Gas Oil into lighter products such as Gasoline, Naphtha and lighter oils.

FOIB: Faroes Oil Industry Board. Association of oil industry license holders in the Faroe Islands.

FPSO: Floating Production, Storage and Offloading vessel. A floating installation through which hydrocarbons are produced, processed and exported by pipeline or tanker.

GHG: Greenhouse gas. A gas that contributes to increasing the insulating properties of the earth's atmosphere. Carbon dioxide (CO₂), methane (CH₄) and nitrous oxide (N₂O) are the three main greenhouse gases.

GRI: Global Reporting Initiative is a multi-stakeholder process and independent institution whose mission is to develop and disseminate globally applicable Sustainability Reporting Guidelines.

GWP: Global Warming Potential. Index describing the relative warming of a unit mass of a greenhouse gas in comparison to the same mass of carbon dioxide.

HALON: A range of compounds containing bromine which is sometimes used in offshore firefighting systems. If released, halon can contribute to stratospheric ozone depletion.

HSE: Health and Safety Executive, U.K. health and safety regulatory agency.

INCINERATION: The burning of a material so that only ashes remain. Incineration may be used to burn garbage, trash or other refuse (typically in a large furnace) as means of reducing waste mass and volume.

ISO: The International Organization for Standardization, a worldwide federation of national standards bodies.

ISO 14001: International standard for environmental management systems, developed by the International Standards Organisation. Certification against the standard is carried out by an accredited third party.

IPIECA: International Petroleum Industry Environmental Conservation Association.

LANDFARM: A type of land treatment unit in which wastes that contain petroleum compounds are mixed and tilled with soils and nutrients. The organic compounds biodegrade under controlled conditions.

LANDFILL: A site where solid waste is deposited. In a modern sanitary facility, a pit is lined so that materials will not escape, and is covered with layers of dirt as it is progressively filled. When completely filled, it is capped and sealed with topsoil.

LTRD RATE: Lost Work Time/Restricted Duty Rate. Number of injuries and illnesses resulting in lost time or restricted duty per 100 employees.

LTI: Lost Time Injury. U.K. mandatory reportable incident resulting in a person being unable to carry out normal duties for a period of three consecutive days.

LTI FREQUENCY: Total number of LTIs divided by the number of hours of exposure. In line with the oil and gas industry, AHL uses a 24-hour exposure time for offshore personnel.

MARCH OF DIMES: A voluntary health agency whose mission is to improve the health of babies by preventing birth defects and infant mortality by funding programs of research, community services, education and advocacy.

MBPD: Thousand barrels per day.

MCF: Thousand cubic feet.

MMBPD: Million barrels per day.

METOCEAN: Meteorological and oceanographic data.

NATIONAL AVERAGE GASOLINE QUALITIES: Unaudited volume weighted fuel qualities, excluding California gasoline, provided by the U.S. EPA. The fuel qualities can be used to calculate national average air emissions.

NATIONAL RESPONSE CENTER: A national point of contact for reporting all oil, chemical, radiological, biological, and etiological discharges into the environment anywhere in the U.S. and its territories.

NATIONAL SAFETY COUNCIL: U.S. advocacy organization for safety and health. The National Safety Council's Mission is “to educate and influence society to adopt safety, health and environmental policies, practices and procedures that prevent and mitigate human suffering and economic losses arising from preventable causes”.

NGO: Non-Governmental Organization.

NPDES: National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System. The primary permitting program under the U.S. Clean Water Act that regulates all discharges to surface water.

NO_x: Oxides of nitrogen (e.g. nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide). By-product gases resulting from the combustion of hydrocarbon fuels which can contribute to acidification and the creation of ground-level ozone.

NORMALIZED DATA: Data in this report have been normalized based on specific units of measure such as safety incidents per 100 employees or air emissions per BOE production/throughput.

OIL ON CUTTINGS: The waste rock and slurry produced by drilling operations are known as cuttings. These can contain small amounts of oil along with residual amounts of oil-based and synthetic drilling muds used during the drilling.

OSHA: Occupational Safety and Health Administration, U.S. safety and health regulatory agency.

OSHA RECORDABLE RATE: Number of “medical treatment” injuries and illnesses per 100 employees.

OSRL: Oil Spill Response Limited, international oil spill response organization based in the U.K..

OZONE (O₃): A reactive form of oxygen which at ground level can be harmful to plants and animals. In the upper atmosphere it acts as a beneficial filter for ultraviolet radiation but is destroyed by halons and CFCs. At ground level it is produced by reactions between VOCs and nitrous oxides and is a constituent of photochemical smog.

PERFORMANCE TARGETS: Standard measures that indicate the extent to which the business or any individual part of the business is attaining the policies, aims, goals and objectives related to any activity; specifically EHS&SR performance in this report.

PON 1: Petroleum Operations Notice 1 used in the U.K. offshore industry for reporting hydrocarbon releases posing a potential risk to the environment. Spills and process upsets that cause temporary exceedance of the 100 ppm short-term limit on the concentration of oil in produced water are reported to the DTI using PON 1 forms.

PPM: Parts per million. Unit of measurement for concentrations of substances in a given discharge or environmental medium.

PRODUCED WATER: Water that is present in oil and gas bearing formations and comes up the well with oil/gas. The produced water emanating from wells contains oil suspended within it. This water typically is elevated in salinity. Produced water is separated from the oil/gas and disposed or re-injected into the formation. As oil fields mature, increasing volumes of produced water occur.

RCRA: Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, the primary U.S. law regulating the management and disposal of waste.

REFORMULATED GASOLINE: Specially refined gasoline that emits lower levels of EPA-designated hazardous air pollutants when burned. The 1990 Clean Air Act requires the sale of reformulated gasoline in the nine areas of the U.S. with the highest ozone levels.

RIDDOR: Reporting of Injuries, Diseases and Dangerous Occurrences Regulations 1995 - U.K. Government health and safety legislation.

SEVERITY ACTUAL/POTENTIAL: Actual severity indicates the degree of loss suffered as a result of incidents and accidents; potential severity indicates the loss that could have been suffered had an escalation in the situation occurred as a result of a further event deemed to have been reasonably likely to have occurred.

SOLID WASTE: As defined under RCRA, any solid, semi-solid, liquid, or contained gaseous materials discarded from industrial, commercial, mining, or agricultural operations, and from community activities. Solid waste includes garbage, construction debris, commercial refuse, sludges and other discarded materials.

SULFUR DIOXIDE (SO₂): A pungent, colorless, gaseous pollutant formed primarily by the combustion of fossil fuels containing sulfur. Can contribute to acidification.

STAKEHOLDER: Any party that has an interest (“stake”) in a company or the company's actions.

STEWARDSHIP: The concept of responsibly managing all of the earth's resources for the benefit of present and future generations of people, plants, and animals.

STOP™: Proprietary DuPont “Safety Training Observation Programme” designed to improve safety behaviours.

UN: United Nations. The purposes of the UN, as set forth in its Charter, are to maintain international peace and security; to develop friendly relations among nations; to cooperate in solving international economic, social, cultural and humanitarian problems and in promoting respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms; and to be a centre for harmonizing the actions of nations in attaining these ends.

UN UDHR: United Nations Universal Declaration of Human Rights is the primary international articulation of the fundamental and inalienable rights of all humans. Adopted by the United Nations General Assembly on December 10, 1948, the UDHR represents the first comprehensive agreement among nations as to the specific rights and freedoms of all human beings.

UNDP: United Nations Development Programme is a UN Agency which seeks to promote democratic governance; poverty reduction; crisis prevention and conflict resolution; economic empowerment and effective development planning; access to clean water, sanitation and energy services; the best use of new technologies for development purposes; and society-wide mobilization against HIV/AIDS.

UNEP: United Nations Environment Programme. UNEP’s mission is to provide leadership and encourage partnership in caring for the environment by inspiring, informing, and enabling nations and peoples to improve their quality of life without compromising that of future generations.

UN GLOBAL COMPACT: A voluntary corporate citizenship initiative which encourages businesses to uphold and promulgate a set of nine core principles in the areas of human rights, labour standards and environmental practice.

VOC: Volatile Organic Compounds. VOC are organic chemicals that evaporate at room temperature. Gasoline is primarily composed of VOC. They contribute to low level ozone formation through their reaction with sunlight and can contribute to upper atmosphere ozone depletion.

VAPOR RECOVERY UNIT/VAPOR COLLECTION SYSTEM: A system by which the volatile gases from gasoline and other volatile petroleum products are captured. These recovery systems are required for gasoline stations in some states, and are often required for loading operations at refineries and terminals.

VLCC: Very Large Crude Carrier.

WORLD BANK: The World Bank is one of the United Nations' specialized agencies and one of the world's largest sources of development assistance. The World Bank supports the efforts of developing country governments to build schools and health centers, provide water and electricity, fight disease, and protect the environment.

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