Industrial Safety Initiatives

Period: April 1, 2023 to March 31, 2024

In addition to supporting the Cosmo Energy Group by pursuing safe operation of refineries and stable supply, Cosmo Oil aims to be an energy company that earns the trust of society by promoting even better sustainability management to fulfill its corporate social responsibility. In fiscal 2023, the company continued to deploy internal communication designed to ensure that management’s passion about safety was directly disseminated in the workplace. Methods included face-to-face discussions with frontline employees during business site visits by top management.

In April 2022, Cosmo Oil established the Sustainability Promotion Committee, chaired by the president, to assume responsibility for sustainability activities and internal control. The new committee merged three internal control committees including the former Safety Environmental Committee. Led by the Sustainability Promotion Committee, Cosmo Oil steadily implements management based on the plan-do-check-act (PDCA) cycle, incorporating progress, evaluation, and review of company-wide safety measures, including those at refineries, with the aim of ensuring safe operations and stable supply. In fiscal 2023, Cosmo Oil pursued greater safety visualization by regularly publishing a newspaper that clearly described its Safety Policy and Safety Goal, and its performance on those. Greater efforts to prevent accidents similar to those which have already occurred are also being made by a meeting body that promotes effective horizontal sharing of case studies of internal and external issues. Looking to further explore ways to strengthen safety, Cosmo Oil also continues to participate in the Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS), an international organization related to process safety.

Safety Policy: Cosmo Oil will continue to be a safe, accident-free Group by working to ensure safety and security in all of its business activities.

Safety Goal: Zero serious accidents¹

1. “Serious accident” refers to an incident that leads to the cancellation of high-pressure gas certification, or accidents defined as serious accidents by the Fire and Disaster Management Agency of Japan.

In fiscal 2023, one IV²-rated process accident occurred at Cosmo Oil. In addition to analyzing the causes of the accident and implementing measures to prevent recurrence, the company strengthened its system for involving in-house experts in its change control and fault management processes and rolled out a company-wide Operational Management System (OMS) in order to improve its management system.

2. This refers to the severity of the impact of the accident on a 5-point scale, with a V rating being the most severe.

• Equipment management factors, such as corrosion
  Cosmo Oil promotes the accumulation and design of technology at specialist sub-committees for ironwork, inspection, instrumentation, electricity, and rotating machinery. In addition, safety departments organize study sessions for production departments to improve daily inspection skills.
• Prevention of human error and status of risk assessment implementation
  Cosmo Oil holds hazard prediction meetings and uses near-miss case studies to identify potential risks during non-routine work. In addition, the company has developed a zero-accident campaign with the involvement of on-site partner companies and promotes initiatives to prevent unsafe behavior. The company also implements risk assessments for serious accidents.
• Establishment of procedures and manuals
  Cosmo Oil is working to improve operation and construction management procedures and manuals by ensuring there are no omissions in procedures, checking that content is understood by the relevant people, and taking other measures. The company is also enhancing its construction management tools by clearly specifying the checkpoints clients must attend to in the manual for each project. In fiscal 2023, the company implemented initiatives designed to reduce defects in construction management.

• Given the recent younger demographic profile of employees, Cosmo Oil is reviewing its education curriculum as part of the process of steadily implementing a PDCA cycle for the education system and working to upgrade technical skills based on training during daily on-site work and using other means. To improve sensitivity to danger, the company also conducts training using simulation equipment and other hands-on training facilities, a variety of disaster management drills, and seminars based on case studies of internal and external accidents. In addition, the company provides hands-on education that considers accident case studies for the employees of partner companies.

Cosmo Oil has continued to provide education on compliance through e-learning for all employees. The company has also designated March 11, the date of the Great East Japan Earthquake, as Cosmo Oil Safety Day, and the company continues to ensure the incident will never be forgotten by implementing initiatives such as reciting the Safety Pledge in front of the safety monument that it installed. In fiscal 2023, all Cosmo Oil Group employees watched a video compiling the story of the accident, its cause and measures to prevent recurrence. Among other measures, the company also held a seminar on the value of life, providing an opportunity to ensure the incident is not forgotten and to reaffirm awareness of safety.

Cosmo Oil has developed a business continuity plan (BCP) manual for its entire supply network, and the company is working to enhance the manual by providing BCP training. Moreover, to increase the resilience of its supply capacity, the company is implementing improvements at its refineries and logistics sites to enable stable supply even in an emergency.

The Chiba Refinery, Yokkaichi Refinery, and Sakai Refinery have continued to obtain industrial safety competency evaluations (safety infrastructure and safety culture evaluations) from the Japan Industrial Safety Competency Center (JSCC). Improvements are being made based on the advice given for the needed improvements identified in the evaluation results, seeking to enhance the level of safety. Furthermore, Cosmo Oil refineries have been certified by the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry of Japan as businesses that practice high-level safety initiatives under the High Pressure Gas Safety Act. Specifically, the Chiba Refinery and Yokkaichi Refinery were named Specified Certified Business Operators (commonly known as “Super Certified Operators”) in April 2021 and August 2022, respectively and the Sakai Refinery was granted Special Accredited Advanced Safety Inspector Certification (commonly known as “A-Certification”) in August 2024.