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Social Responsibility

Health and Safety

Tesoro considers safety an integral part of business and our performance. We are dedicated to sharing, leading, motivating and facilitating continuous safety improvement. Our success is reflected by efforts that have enabled Tesoro to become a recognized leader in industry safety.

Tesoro’s location-based safety staff members are supported by a corporate team with an emphasis on identifying, sharing and implementing best practices across the company. The company’s refineries have earned safety awards from the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association.

Golden Eagle Refinery WINGS Program

The Golden Eagle refinery, based in Martinez, California, developed an employee safety rewards program that encourages and engages employees to attain excellence in safety performance. Called WINGS, an acronym for Willing Involvement Nurtures Greater Safety, the program motivates employees to take an active role in improving safety for themselves and their co-workers. Employees who are actively engaged in making the Golden Eagle Refinery a safer place to work are recognized and rewarded with points, which are redeemable for safety awards. Through participation and engagement in the safety process, employees can protect themselves, the workplace and the community.

Anacortes Safety Management System

The safety philosophy at Tesoro’s Anacortes, Washington, refinery is to create an injury-free workplace. To achieve this goal, in 2003 the refinery began developing its Safety Management System, a comprehensive initiative that documents safety performance, safety goals and a plan to meet those objectives. The Safety Management System encompasses 16 broad elements of safety expectations that, together, comprise the foundation for the safety program.

A key component of the system is the implementation of a diverse array of programs that promote safety awareness, recognize safety achievement and acknowledge safety milestones. For example, a portion of each employee’s annual bonus is tied to the refinery’s safety performance and to how proactive the employees have been in sharing safety incidents through submittal of near-miss reports. Another example is holding informal “safety huddles” at the beginning of each shift. Anacortes believes that employee engagement and commitment are the keys to achieving an injury-free workplace.

Hawaii HURRICANE Safety Program

Our Kapolei refinery operates a behavior-based safety program that uses the acronym “Hurricane.” This stands for:

This safety program is driven by front-line employees who sample their co-workers by observing their on-the-job behavior. The employee doing the observation monitors all aspects of work behavior, ranging from the use of personal protective equipment to details such as using proper lifting techniques and correctly keeping one’s eyes on the task at hand.

In providing feedback, the observer communicates what behaviors were conducted safely, what, if any, behaviors were considered at-risk behaviors and what might be done differently to ensure consistently safe behavior.

Alaska EAGLES Program

One example of Tesoro’s unmatched safety programs is the successful EAGLES program instituted at Tesoro’s refinery in Kenai, Alaska.

In 2000, while the facility already had a good safety record at the time, it wanted to eliminate all safety concerns. That year, the refinery implemented a program called EAGLES - Examples, Attitudes, and Goals for Lasting Employee Safety.

A behavior-based safety program, EAGLES takes a proactive approach to increasing safety in the workplace. Most incidents are the result of behaviors, and this the program works toward fostering a workplace culture built on recognition and removal of behaviors that involve risk in order to create a safer environment. Refinery employees were trained as observers to identify where a safety risk might result. Today, about 70 of the refinery’s 180 employees are trained safety observers.

Mandan’s Safety Supper and Near-Miss Programs

The Mandan refinery has developed a popular safety initiative called the “Safety Supper Program.” Three times a year, the refinery recognizes employees who have demonstrated safety awareness on the job by rewarding them with gift certificates to local restaurants.

In addition, the Mandan refinery operates the “Near-Miss Program,” an incentive program in which employees can earn rewards such as gasoline coupons or additional safety supper gift certificates. Employees earn rewards for identifying and reporting potential safety hazards, providing safety suggestions or leading safety talks at the company’s required all-employee monthly safety meetings. The facility also holds annual off-site safety training for all employees and offers first aid and CPR training to all employees.