Mitigating Recordable Incidents in Nigeria's Oil & Gas Construction Industry: A Human Factor Engineering (HFE) Approach

Abstract

The Nigerian Oil and Gas construction industry poses significant risks due to incident prevention limiting factors. These factors include inadequate resource allocation, prioritization of production over safety, poor communication, insufficient supervision, suboptimal workplace design, weak risk perception, limited management commitment, worker incompetence, flawed design systems, and inadequate planning. This research aims to develop a human factor engineering model to support the reduction of the Total Recordable Incident Frequency (TRIFR) in Oil and Gas construction activities in Nigeria. The study involved site-based construction workers with a minimum of 2 years' experience in upstream, downstream, and midstream Oil construction industries. Data collection utilized a descriptive study design with structured questionnaires, and analysis employed SPSS-AMOS and Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) techniques. Results indicated statistically significant correlations between human factors and TRIFR across workplace, task, personal, organizational, and design factors. The structural equation regression model further demonstrated the significance of human factors in relation to TRIFR. Specifically, path coefficients of 0.18, -0.4, 0.31, -1.06, and -0.21 were observed for personal, organizational, workplace, design, and task factors, respectively. In conclusion, the research proposes that engineered human factors can effectively contribute to reducing the total incident frequency rate. Recommendations include the establishment of a construction safety board by the Nigerian government, the implementation of integrated contractor construction health and safety management systems by organizations and workers embracing personal responsibility for safety to prevent or minimize incident frequency rates.