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Safety is Our Foundation
For Success
Safety means our workers go home every day to their families and our communities know we are dedicated to keeping them safe.
Safety means our workers go home every day to their families and our communities know we are dedicated to keeping them safe.
At Valero, we believe that safety and reliability are extremely important, not only for the protection of our employees and communities, and the cultural values we aspire to as a company, but also for operational success, as a decrease in the number of employee and process safety events should generally reduce unplanned shutdowns and increase the operational reliability of our refineries and plants.
This, in turn, should also translate into a safer workplace with fewer environmental incidents and stronger community relations.
We strive to improve safety and reliability performance by offering year-round safety training programs for our employees and contractors, and by seeking to promote the same expectations and culture of safety.
We also seek to enhance our safety performance by conducting safety audits, quality assurance visits, and comprehensive safety and risk assessments at our facilities.
Our participation in the U.S. Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration's (OSHA) Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) exemplifies our consistent pursuit of going beyond regulatory requirements by voluntarily submitting to robust safety certifications and audits. OSHA approves VPP Star Site status only if the facility demonstrates that enhanced safety systems have been implemented and embraced in a collaborative way by leaders and employees. Sites are reassessed by OSHA every three to five years in order to maintain their VPP status.
The health, safety and well-being of our employees, contractors and the communities where we operate remain our top priority. Safety is our foundation for success.
At Valero, the safety of our employees, contractors and communities is of utmost importance. Our robust safety initiatives, year-round training programs and extensive safety management systems all contribute to our goal of safety excellence.
At Valero, we are focused on maintaining our operations in an environmentally responsible manner; investing in low-carbon fuels production and renewable energy projects that contribute toward reducing companywide GHG emissions; and participating in ecological and conservation projects.
Valero once again achieved high refinery utilization rates, resulting from another excellent performance in process safety and reliability, which are essential to curb environmental incidents and improve safety.
Our best ever 97.4% refining mechanical availability in 2023 represents highly reliable refinery operations. Excellent performance in this metric reflects our ability to avoid unplanned downtime, minimize environmental impacts, implement our structured turnaround planning process and ensure efficient use of resources.
With refineries along coastlines and ethanol plants in the U.S. Midwest, Valero has long evaluated and prepared for physical risks to its facilities from natural disasters and weather events. Our emergency preparedness and response programs are focused on the mitigation of these risks.
Check out our ESG Report for additional information on Valero’s emergency response programs.
The STAR (Safety Tracking and Recognition) Metric is our safety program for our ethanol plants. This program recognizes top performing ethanol plants in five key areas:
Each quarter we recognize plants achieving zero incidents in all five areas. Plants that go four consecutive quarters without an incident earn a Super STAR award.
Our Goal Zero program is designed to eliminate incidents and injuries in six focus areas by taking a data-driven risk-based approach.
Our Goal Zero program is designed to eliminate incidents and injuries in six focus areas by taking a data-driven risk based approach:
Safety data sheets provide, in a standard format, product safe use and handling information regarding potential hazards, and how to respond to emergencies.
Safety is integrated into every aspect of what we do at Valero. We instill safety and reliability at every facility to push beyond regulatory compliance to operational excellence.