Safety and health in the steel industry: Data report 2023

Foreword Potential Serious Injuries and Fatalities Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate Lost Time Injury analysis Fatality analysis Process Safety Management analysis Sickness absence Download publication

For terminology definitions and calculations, please refer to the worldsteel publication Safety and health principles and definitions available at worldsteel.org

Foreword

worldsteel’s safety and health benchmarking is based on balanced and collective metrics.

Monitoring and reporting on accidents and diseases globally ensures adequate risk-based prioritisation and focused global efforts to guarantee the availability of adequate and effective risk controls. Openness and transparency are key to improving safety and health in the steel industry.

The safety statistics for 2022 were derived from data provided by 55 organisations, representing 60% of worldsteel members. In terms of crude steel production coverage, worldsteel collected data covering 487 Mt of crude steel, corresponding to 26.6% of global crude steel production.

In terms of general industry performance, this report shows progress, with lagging indicators reaching record lows. However, despite this cause for cautious optimism, it is important to recognise that 90 fatalities were reported to worldsteel in 2022. Our immediate focus needs to remain on the reduction and elimination of fatalities across our industry.

worldsteel’s position on lagging indicators

The most popular lagging indicators, such as Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) or Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate (TRIFR), will be kept within the worldsteel reporting framework and as a reference of the industry’s general performance.

However, comparisons between organisations or local sites should not be made using LTIFR or TRIFR.

Below are the main reasons:

These indicators correlate poorly with the severity of accidents and injuries and do not provide a valid or reliable measure of safety and health controls and initiatives.
The size of an organisation (number of hours) positively impacts injury frequency rates. The number of hours worked (global and regional) don’t allow a comparison on a like-to-like basis.
Although worldsteel has a definition for Lost Time Injury (LTI) and Total Recordable Injury (TRI), companies vary in their definition of what constitutes an LTI and TRI.

These two indicators should not be part of individual, team or organisation objectives, bonuses, or incentives as they can foster a negative attitude towards reporting, limiting the organisational ability to learn and improve.

Safety and health reporting frameworks are evolving. To keep up, our industry must invest resources and time to better monitor safety and health performance. This will result in more effective and reliable data to reflect the true story and the challenges of our operations and people.

Potential Serious Injuries and Fatalities (PSIF)

A Serious Injury is a permanent impairment or life-altering state, or an injury that, if not immediately addressed, will lead to death or permanent or long-term impairment.

A Potential Serious injury or Fatality is a near miss incident that could have resulted in a serious injury or fatality if not for specific barriers or countermeasures or if one factor around the event had been changed.

A precursor of PSIF is a high-risk situation in which control methods are absent, ineffective, or not complied with, and if allowed to continue, would potentially result in a fatality or serious injury.

The number of individual sites reporting to worldsteel the use of the PSIF framework has increased in recent years. The figures below only include data from companies/sites reporting PSIFs and combine contractors and employees.

Figure 1: Potential Serious Injuries and Fatalities triangle 2022 for employees and contractors

* In 2022 there were 90 fatalities reported to worldsteel. In order to preserve the ratios within the PSIF section of this report, Fatalities reported by
organisations that were not able to provide PSIF information have been excluded from this analysis.
** All other injuries includes Restricted Work Cases (RWC), Medically Treated Injuries (MTI) and Minor Injuries (MI)

Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate (TRIFR)

Total Recordable Incidents comprise Fatalities (F), Lost Time Injuries (LTI), Restricted Work Cases (RWC) and Medically Treated Injuries (MTI). In the data survey, restricted work cases and medically treated injuries are reported separately. Working hours are counted only on sites that have reported at least one restricted work case or medically treated injury.

Figure 2: Total Recordable Injury Frequency Rate 2017-2022

Figure 3: Safety pyramid 2022

* In 2022, there were 90 fatalities reported to worldsteel. In order to preserve the ratios within the TRIFR section of this report, Fatalities reported by organisations that were not able to provide TRIFR information have been excluded from this analysis.

Safety pyramids can be used to compare the shape of a company’s incident triangle. In case the company triangle is narrower, it could mean that not all incidents are reported, or that fatality prevention requires more attention. It should be noted that the average incident triangle is not necessarily optimal; it should probably be wider. Reducing the number of more minor incidents does not directly reduce the probability of severe incidents, but having those reported allows action to be taken to mitigate risks that might otherwise cause severe incidents.

Figure 4: Safety pyramids 2022 for employees and contractors

Table 1: Ratio Lost Time Injury vs Fatality 2004-2022

Cause	Lost Time Injuries (LTIs)	Fatalities	Ratio LTI per 1 Fatality
Gassing and asphyxiation	227	136	1.67
Explosion	228	92	2.48
Rail	216	73	2.96
Fire	320	74	4.32
Electrical	425	76	5.59
Structural failure	325	55	5.91
Fall from height	1849	306	6.04
On site road vehicle	856	125	6.85
Forklift	286	33	8.67
Overhead crane	885	99	8.94
Moving machinery	3003	291	10.32
Hot metal	718	63	11.40
Falling object	1896	164	11.56
Other mobile equipment	790	52	15.19
Off site road vehicle	322	13	24.77
Hot substances	460	15	30.67
Product loading	650	17	38.24
Product handling storage	1936	38	50.95
Exposure to chemicals	172	3	57.33
Manual tasks tools	2416	7	345.14
Slip, trip and fall	3300	6	550.00

The types of injuries with the smallest ratio between Lost Time Injuries and Fatalities are covered by Process Safety events.

Companies should act if they are experiencing Lost Time Injuries of this nature. A PSIF approach should be used, and leading and lagging Process Safety-focused metrics should be in place.

The table shows the ratio between Lost Time Injuries and Fatalities by cause. Small ratios mean that per Fatality, there are, on average, only a small amount of Lost Time Injuries; a big ratio indicates there are many Lost Time Injuries per Fatality. If these were drawn as an incident triangle for each cause, the triangles for the small ratios would be very narrow.

These ratios show that to prevent Fatalities, it is more important to undertake comprehensive and robust incident investigations and instigate preventive measures for those incidents with a low ratio. It is precisely these incidents that are most likely to lead to Fatalities without effective prevention. These ratios also emphasise the usefulness of categorising Potential Serious Injuries and Fatalities among other incidents. Please see the next chapter for further information on this.

Lost Time Injury (LTI) analysis

Lost Time Injury (LTI). Any work-related injury resulting in the employee or contractor being unable to return to work for their next scheduled work period. Returning to work with work restrictions does not constitute a Lost Time Injury status, no matter how minimal or severe the restrictions, provided it is at the employee’s next scheduled shift. However, if an Injury deteriorates and time is later lost, an LTI should be recorded. Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR) is calculated by combining Fatalities (F) and LTIs.

Figure 5: Number of Lost Time Injuries, 2013-2022

Figure 6: Lost Time Injury Frequency Rate (LTIFR), 2013-2022

Figure 7: Causes of Lost Time Injuries 2013-2022

The following graphs show the distribution of causes separated by employees and contractors.

Figure 8: Causes of Lost Time Injuries in 2022 for employees and contractors

Causes of Lost Time Injuries – contractors 2022

Causes of Lost Time Injuries – employees 2022

The top five causes of Lost Time Injury in 2022 for both employees and contractors were: slipping, tripping and falling, use of manual tools, moving machinery, product handling and falling from height.

Fatality analysis

Death from a work-related injury, certified by a medical professional. Fatality Frequency Rate (FFR) is calculated on the number of Fatalities per million man hours.

Figure 9: Number of Fatalities 2013-2022

* Data received from China via Sinosteel Wuhan Safety & Environmental Protection Research Institute (SEPRI) does not distinguish between employees and contractors. Data received directly from Chinese worldsteel members does and is included in the analysis.

Figure 10: Fatality Frequency Rate 2013-2022

Figure 11: Causes of Fatalities 2013-2022

The following graphs show the distribution of causes split by employees and contractors.

Figure 12: Causes of employee Fatalities in 2022

Figure 13: Causes of contractor Fatalities in 2022

Note: events registered as ‘other’ or ‘Unknown’ are not included.

Process Safety Management (PSM) analysis

Process Safety Management (PSM) is a blend of operational, engineering and management skills focused on preventing catastrophic accidents and near misses, particularly explosions, fires, structural collapse, and damaging releases associated with a loss of containment of energy or dangerous substances such as molten metals, fuels, and chemicals.

The manufacturing of steel involves processes with intrinsic hazards that need careful management. The measures required to control these hazards are often complex. The focus of Process Safety Management is not limited to protecting the people within the company but also includes the environment, assets, and the surrounding community.

Table 2: Significant events benchmark

Typical process safety events	Quantity	Main causes
Fires	761	Inadequate Inspections Falling of Spatter Electric Flash Inadequate engineering design Strip offset/friction on cold rolling mill Poor Housekeeping Poor material quality Splashing of Slag Electrical equipment failure Inadequate preparation of hot work Small stockpile fires in recycling yards/scrap bins Condition of the integrity of fuel Oil injection pipes and hoses Continuous casting plant hydraulic fire BOF Molten metal splash, Chemical reaction due to the entry of fuel carbon into the combustion chamber of the electric furnace Liquid metal leakage
Explosions	35	LNG Gas explosion Basket scrap having some pressurised cans. Hydrogen explosion Blast when loading the furnace with scrap metal. Flammable gas accumulation Mixing blast furnaces gas and gasoil in the boiler (human error + technical ability to do the mix)
Molten metal and water reactions	78	Water in the slag drum and slag handling Ladle Breakouts, Spills, Splashes Rainwater/snow in scrap bucket when charging Rapid phase change Water in scrap metal Torpedo car derailment event Water leakage from the furnace roof’s delta area leading to water accumulation on molten slag and falling attached slag pieces from roof Blast Furnace molten metal release related to channel damage
Gas and liquid releases (flammable, toxic or asphyxiant gases)	998	Reformer Gas header rupture due to erosion. Mechanical integrity (erosion/corrosion), valves, flanges, and pipelines. Lack of maintenance Hydraulic systems Gas leakage through pipelines/flanges. CO release due to feeding mixed gas hose bottom flange cladding leakage. Leakage of Ammonia through Cylinder Assembly Corrosion

Figure 13: Process Safety Management maturity assessment results 2022

The Process Safety Management maturity analysis was derived from data provided by 28 organisations, representing 30% of worldsteel members.

Increasing maturity in process safety management can be observed. The industry has grown in experience and expertise in process safety management; however, there is an important area of improvement for element 15 (measurement and metrics). Process Safety KPIs are different from Occupational Safety KPIs. This issue has led to requests from worldsteel members to provide effective indicators for benchmarking and monitoring purposes. In the past, worldsteel has referenced well-accepted frameworks (e.g., RP API 754); however, a specific set of indicators and guidance will be developed.

Sickness absence

Sickness absence [Percentage] is calculated as the total number of hours of sickness absence per total work hours. This indicator is only calculated for employees.

The following table shows the sickness absence per region.

Table 3: Sickness absence per region 2015 – 2022

% Sickness Absence	2015	2016	2017	2018	2019	2020	2021	2022
Asia/Pacific	0.12	0.08	0.08	0.19	0.15	0.05	0.11	0.54
CIS	0.75	1.26	1.41	0.6	1.38	1.88	1.73	2.33*
Europe	1.11	2.02	2.26	1.92	3.32	3.89	4.36	5.59
North America	0.14	0.14	0.14	0.23	0.22	0.42	0.14	1.31
South America	0.3	0.53	0.48	0.43	0.75	0.46	0.42	3.03

* In 2022, CIS data is derived from member companies/sites located in Ukraine and Kazakhstan

	Employees	Contractors	Combined
2017	5.39	3.06	4.40
2018	4.67	3.27	4.05
2019	4.01	3.72	3.88
2020	4.09	2.72	3.49
2021	4.44	3.15	3.82
2022	4.21	3.07	3.66

Attribute	Value
1. Fatalities	78
2. Lost time injuries	2399
3. Restricted work cases	1010
4. Medical treatment injuries	4240
5. Minor injuries	14668
6. Near misses (incidents)	192932
7. Unsafe acts and situations	3205987

PYRAMID	Value
1. Fatalities	25
2. Lost time injuries	1609
3. Restricted work cases	608
4. Medical treatment injuries	2896
5. Minor injuries	11475
6. Near misses	166158
7. Unsafe acts and situations	2794724

PYRAMID	Value
1. Fatalities	53
2. Lost time injuries	790
3. Restricted work case	402
4. Medical treatment injuries	1344
5. Minor injuries	3193
6. Near misses	26774
7. Unsafe acts and situations	411263

	Contractors	Employees
2013	1282	4500
2014	1330	3710
2015	1151	3366
2016	925	3129
2017	743	2835
2018	923	2429
2019	1002	2211
2020	846	2021
2021	870	2075
2022	843	1634

	China (indirect data)	Contractors	Employees
2013	35	77	65
2014	20	66	44
2015	32	69	53
2016	27	57	45
2017	15	49	40
2018	22	48	70
2019	19	49	32
2020	15	50	34
2021	16	55	45
2022	12	53	25

	Employees	Contractors	Combined
2013	2.00	0.94	1.60
2014	1.76	0.88	1.39
2015	1.48	0.72	1.17
2016	1.21	0.64	1.01
2017	1.25	0.52	0.97
2018	1.03	0.56	0.84
2019	0.94	0.65	0.83
2020	0.98	0.66	0.85
2021	1.05	0.59	0.85
2022	0.85	0.45	0.65

	Employees	Contractors	Combined
2013	0.029	0.057	0.039
2014	0.021	0.044	0.030
2015	0.023	0.043	0.032
2016	0.017	0.040	0.025
2017	0.018	0.034	0.024
2018	0.030	0.029	0.029
2019	0.014	0.032	0.021
2020	0.016	0.039	0.025
2021	0.023	0.037	0.029
2022	0.013	0.028	0.020