BP's own internal studies have shown that employees who work more than 16 hours during a 24-hour time period can lack the mental capacity to make sound and timely decisions. Yet during 2009, 16-plus hour work shifts were routine at Prudhoe Bay, with employees working beyond 16 hours about 200-400 times per month, 75 percent of which represented 18 hour work shifts, according to internal BP documents.
Another internal BP document, dated September 8, 2009, shows that a BP employee worked 36 consecutive days of 16 and 18 hour shifts in 2009, in violation of several of BP's own policies.
According to Pascal, the EPA's former debarment counsel, BP told her 10 years ago that the company intended to come up with a plan to "fix" the 16-18 hour work shifts.
"John Minge himself told me that the issue of overtime had not been corrected or settled," Pascal said. "This has been a problem since 2000 when employees started complaining to me about it and management intended to fix it. Clearly, it's still not fixed."
BP employees who work at Prudhoe Bay are supposed to work 12-hour shifts for two weeks, and then receive two weeks off. Employees who work beyond 12 hours receive overtime pay. Kovac said the overtime issue has been ongoing for several years and, despite complaints dating back more than a decade, BP has only recently addressed the issue because of a fear employees would publicize it.
He said some employees are "happy" to work beyond 12 hours because BP pays very well and workers can earn a healthy salary in overtime alone. But, he said, it's "not a healthy situation and creates a dangerous environment."
"It's not a good idea," Kovac said. "Working more than 12 hours during a shift affects decision making and response time and can cause disasters. People have to take catnaps while operating large volumes of hydrocarbons under high pressure. We will have accidents as a result of it."
BP has addressed the issue by hiring technicians, but even that has not solved the problem, as it takes three to four years, Kovac said, for a trainee to be fully prepared to work on the North Slope.
"The number of new technicians sent to the operating facilities since 2006 and the slower-than-expected pace of newly-hired technician training has not kept pace with 'leavers,' new work activities requiring substantial facility/field production technician support, and support for external commitments made and BP initiatives," according to an October 2009 internal BP document discussing overtime concerns and its impact on the safe operations of Prudhoe Bay.
"Additionally, the facility and field-production-authorized complements are insufficient relative to the quantity of absences that occur continuously; thus, the combination of vacancies, not-fully qualified technicians, and absences results in 'open positions' for facility staffing that must be filled by 18 hour work shifts.
Currently, as much as 50 percent of the 16-plus hour work shifts result from 'open positions' filled to cover vacancies and absences to staff facilities and field production positions to the level we established through [Process Hazard Analysis] for safe operation."
"Thirty to forty-five percent of the 16-plus hour work shifts are caused by work activities associated with commitments made to deliver against targets established for external commitments or performance contracts," the BP document says. "Five to 15 percent of 16-plus hour work shifts are caused by work activities directly associated with production. Wellpad operators are being consistently scheduled for 16-plus hour work shifts (primarily 18 hour work shifts) in order to fill 'open positions.'"
In 2009, there were 652 instances in which wellpad and drillsite operators worked in excess of 16 hours.
"Since wellpad operators are designated professional drivers, the scheduling represents a deliberate non-conformance to BP Group Standard for Driving Safety and [the BP Exploration Alaska] Driving Safety Policy," said the October 2009 memo sent to BP's Alaska officials.
"Rather than hire more people who are rested, [BP} would rather work tired workers with too much to do for 18 hours in an environment that handles hazardous and explosive materials," Pascal said in an interview. "Why hasn't Congress and the [Occupational Safety and Health Administration] weighed in on this chronic problem that is just another symptom of chronic cost-cutting?"
An OSHA spokesperson did not return calls for comment and an Energy Committee investigator said Waxman is "looking into it."
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