Social

Workforce Health
and Safety

Why It Matters to Us

We believe that safety is a precursor to achieving operational excellence. The safety of our employees and contract workers is a top priority as the nature of natural gas extraction activities, including well operations and water hauling, has the potential to pose health and safety risks to workers. Our laser focus on safety has only intensified, following two contractor fatalities in 2022. We take these tragic accidents very seriously and have conducted internal and external reviews to develop a comprehensive plan geared towards refocusing our entire workforce on the importance of operating safely.

What We Are Doing

The safety of our people and the environment in which they work is central to everything we do. We prioritize safety objectives over business objectives, and we conduct our active business operations in accordance with the applicable health and safety requirements established by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and other regulatory bodies such as the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

Safety Culture

As we strive to be the safest operator in the Appalachian Basin, we implement technologies, robust training, and clear safety guidelines to ensure all workers — including our large contractor base — have the resources, training, and support from our culture necessary to work safely. Our Family, Obligation, Communication, Understanding, and Support (FOCUS) program and training promotes an overall culture of safety and serves as a coaching tool for our employees and contractors. Click on the graphic below to learn more about each component of our FOCUS program.

RESET

F is for Family

Family is about expanding our connections and caring for the people here at work and at home, and treating everyone as our family.

O is for Obligation

Each one of us has an obligation to perform our jobs efficiently and safely in a manner that protects the health and safety of ourselves and those around us.

C is for Communication

Communication is engaging in respectful conversations that focus on our common goals and values

U is for Understanding

Understanding is being aware of our safety goals and how we can each contribute to achieving them

S is for Support

Support is working together to create an environment where Zero is Possible, a safe working environment to ensure we all return home safely to our families

FOCUS exemplifies our commitment to creating an environment where “Zero is Possible” and ensures that all employees and contract workers understand why safety is important to our EQT family — at home and on the job. The program was so well received by employees that we expanded the FOCUS training to include all contractors. We assess our contractors’ performance and provide additional training and coaching to them as needed. We apply a FOCUS lens to our safety management processes, training, contractor guidance, and interaction with local communities. Employees and contractors who exemplify our safety culture and go beyond expectations are rewarded with digital challenge coins, representing each letter of the FOCUS acronym.

In 2022, we began holding in-person leadership and safety culture sessions. These sessions were delivered to our leadership internally as well as the leadership teams of key business partners. The sessions demonstrated our dedication to building a stronger safety culture within our company.

Industry Collaboration

As a responsible corporate citizen, we look for opportunities to collaborate with our peers to help improve overall industry safety performance. Through our active membership in the ISNetworld^® (ISN) Appalachian Working Group, we share safety-related best practices and innovations with a group of natural gas producers to improve safety performance within the Appalachian Basin. We also require that all our contractors be ISN members and that they utilize the ISN digital platform for uploading and tracking safety statistics, which are accessible to us for review. In 2022, our environmental, health, and safety (EHS) ISN representative attended our contractor conference to present updates to our safety scorecard and processes and answer any ISN-related questions for our contractors.

We also created an Emergency Health and Safety Coalition with seven other companies to address similar EHS hazards in 2022. The coalition meets quarterly to discuss lessons we have learned and best practices for our industry with a shared goal of developing and maintaining the highest safety standards.

governance

Our Safety department works alongside the Environmental, Fleet, and Security teams. The EHS Vice President, who reports directly to our Chief Executive Officer, leads the department. Five times a year, the Vice President provides EHS-specific updates to the Public Policy and Corporate Responsibility (PPCR) Committee of the Board of Directors.

We maintain an annual cash incentive compensation plan for our employees, which we refer to as our Short-Term Incentive Plan (STIP). The STIP is based on our successful achievement of specific financial, operational, and EHS performance measures, which are established annually by the Management Development and Compensation Committee of our Board of Directors. For 2023, 15% of the annual incentive compensation opportunity under the STIP is tied to safety performance — specifically, our “safety intensity” performance. We believe this provides a meaningful incentive for all our employees to maintain their focus on safety and further reinforces the importance of safety as part of our culture. For more information about the 2022 STIP and the related performance metrics, see our 2022 Proxy Statement.

EHS Data Tracking

We use a centralized database to track all EHS data in a single location, which is updated monthly and made available to all EQT employees. The database provides our entire organization with transparency on our overall EHS performance and the performance of individual departments. In 2022, we added a corrective action feature to the database to increase clarity and ownership for health and safety action items.

EHS Management System and Risk Identification

Our EHS Management System is informed by the federal and state regulatory requirements of OSHA, the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, and the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection. Our EHS Management System enables us to systematically identify and manage workforce safety risk by communicating our EHS Policy, workforce safety information, awareness and training, safety procedures, performance monitoring, and safety verification processes to our employees and contractors at all locations. We are committed to auditing our EHS Management System annually to provide updates when needed and ensure alignment with current issues and regulatory requirements. In 2022, our EHS team performed over 40 audits to verify that all our contractors and employees were in compliance with our comprehensive safety standards.

The identification, prioritization, and management of risks associated with our health and safety performance is core to our EHS Management System. Our detailed risk and hazard analysis (RHA) process uses a hierarchy of safety controls to pursue, establish, and sustain proper safeguards. Before any fieldwork begins, the RHA requires a systematic safety review of the site construction plan and all daily onsite workforce activities. If a task is deemed unsafe, everyone onsite has the obligation and authority to stop work without fear of retribution or discipline. To ensure the RHA functions properly, we use a multilayered verification process and a qualified team of internal and external safety experts to oversee observation, testing, inspections, and audits. We share verification results with our leadership team, and we take action to strengthen any potential weaknesses identified.

To engage our workforce in the safe work decision making process we conduct safety meetings, stand-downs, leverage our emergency hotline, and require employees to report health and safety incidents. Our toll-free emergency hotline operates twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week. Our call center received 2,591 calls in 2022 and has played a critical role in enabling us to collect the necessary information to dispatch appropriate individuals and agencies to mitigate incidents. We require all employees, contractors, and vendors to report an emergency, medical issue, fire, spill, safety concern, or other issue that may occur. Members of the EHS department field these calls to ensure the right teams are notified to respond.

We also maintain a community hotline number for community members to report safety concerns; see Economic and Societal Impact for more information on how we protect our communities.

Emergency Hotline: 1-833-990-1534

Safety Training

Safety training is a critical component of our workplace safety initiatives. All EQT employees receive core safety training annually, along with more frequent specialized training for employees tailored to the work performed and the types of issues faced by those employees. We customize specialized training subjects and delivery methods as needed. For example, in 2022, our monthly safety meetings with field employees, held both virtually and in-person, covered issues such as:

We continue to have contractors take our FOCUS training program, including training on water hauler truck safety and rollover prevention. Throughout 2022, we continued to distribute our monthly safety newsletter to our employees. We also developed a version of the newsletter dedicated to our contractors’ safety. Additionally, many of the chemicals that we use in our hydraulic fracturing processes have the potential to cause ill-health for employees if they are misused. We provide training on chemicals and chemical handling supported by safety data sheets and hazard communication.

“EQT reinforces all of the expected safety protocols and metrics. It is up front and well known where EQT stands regarding safety. It is more than just talk. EQT reinforces their actions without consequence when it comes to safety.”
Anonymous EQT Contractor quote from 2022 Safety Culture Survey

During 2022, our field-based employees completed approximately 2,655 combined hours of EHS training, while our office-based employees completed approximately 5,374 combined hours of EHS training. Our contract workers completed approximately 21,850 hours in the aggregate of EHS training hosted by EQT.

Contractor Safety

Contract workers made up approximately 80% of our total workforce hours in 2022 — necessitating transparency from and collaboration with our partner companies. All drilling, construction, maintenance, or other operations-related contractors that we utilize must agree to adhere to our EHS Policies and Program. These include safety requirements that are updated regularly to reflect best practices and apply to all work performed by a contractor’s employees and the employees of their subcontractors. Contractors must also pass a qualification process developed by ISN. ISN ensures our contractors qualify by providing vital information regarding their performance in the following key areas:

Our EHS department collaborates with our Supplier Relations Management group to oversee contractors’ compliance with our safety standards. If a contractor does not satisfy our safety standards, our EHS team collaborates with the supplier, applicable operations departments, and Supplier Relations Management to seek improvement. If the supplier does not improve, safer service providers are engaged. Contractors who fail to meet our rules and standards are not permitted to continue to work on our sites.

We remain engaged with our contractors as work evolves to ensure we achieve our joint commitment to safety. We track contractor safety incident rates (injury and vehicle accidents) provided by contractors via ISN and our contractor safety auditing process is incorporated in our contractor safety qualification program.

We have also automated certain aspects of our operations to improve efficiency and enhance workers’ safety. In our drilling operations, we perform remote geosteering and use directional drilling services. Our wellbore data is gathered remotely via satellite and analyzed for quality control issues. Adjustments in the speed and direction of drilling are made remotely and, if necessary, instructions are sent electronically to crews on location to make corrections. This not only decreases the number of onsite personnel, thereby reducing the potential for safety issues, but it also allows us to use the best geosteerers and our business partners' best directional drillers and personnel to perform services on multiple wells and rigs simultaneously.

In our completions operations, we have eliminated the use of hammer unions — a known failure point in the industry — in our hydraulic fracturing operations. We replaced the labor associated with carrying and hammering hundreds of connections with a controlled, mechanically assisted rig-up with connections that are bolted together instead of hammered. Eliminating hammer unions from our hydraulic fracturing operations has decreased the risk of failed connections, thereby improving equipment life and creating a safer work environment that requires less labor and has a lower operational cost.

We have automated our wellhead controls, decreasing the number of personnel needed on location to execute valve actuation and maintenance while increasing valve maintenance and reliability. Our automated system opens and closes the valves on our drilling rigs and greases the valves on a set schedule, increasing the valves' life.

Additionally, we perform vibration analysis on our wells, which tells our pump operator if the well pump is operating within a specified “danger zone.” Staying outside the “danger zone” extends the life of the pump and decreases the frequency at which pumps need to be rebuilt. Rebuilding well pumps is a labor-intensive process that increases the risk of workforce injuries and spills. By reducing the number of required pump rebuilds, we improve our efficiency and our safety, while reducing our environmental impact.

Traffic Safety

Safe driving is an area of particular importance for us as our site activities at times necessitate heavy truck traffic that can affect surrounding communities. In addition to our FOCUS training for water haulers, we maintain Traffic Control Plans and Fleet Safety Procedures. We hire personnel with law enforcement backgrounds to monitor contractors and operate speed radar equipment. Not only do these individuals help ensure our employees and contractors follow our guidelines, they also support community safety. Read more about our efforts to protect public safety in Economic and Societal Impact.

We also work closely with driving safety and industry experts to reduce risks associated with operating our vehicles. Both new and experienced drivers must demonstrate their safe driving skills through a periodic supervisor observation session. New employees undergo a series of computer-based training programs and behind-the-wheel training, including a defensive driving module. We provide additional instruction for those employees operating specialty vehicles or haul trailers, performing off-road travel, or driving construction vehicles on public roads. One such course is a U.S. DOT training, which enables drivers to cross state lines and remain in compliance with relevant laws. Our drivers are required to be recertified every three years. Our drivers completed a total of 1,303 driver training courses in 2022 — including vehicle, all-terrain vehicle, and snow mobile trainings. We require contractors to record miles driven in ISN to establish preventable vehicle accident rates. Our contractors drove 33,215,467 miles for us in 2022 and had a preventable vehicle accident rate of 2.56.

We require all water hauling vendor vehicles to install video cameras — one camera facing the driver and another forward-facing camera to show the roadway. These cameras allow us to conduct periodic spot checks on the drivers to verify that they are following the bonded routes, adhering to posted speed limits, and that they are not distracted while driving. The cameras have also assisted us in determining the cause of accidents and are used to share lessons learned from different events to further enhance our safety culture.

We continue to use our Water App to allow us to track the location of water trucks and other vehicles operated by our service providers. We launched the application in early 2021 and it has enabled us to source local, available vehicles more efficiently — thereby reducing mileage traveled — and to monitor for vehicles that fail to operate within our standards such as defined speed levels. We believe that this insight will continue to increase the effectiveness of our incident response times. For more information, see Water.

 Occupational Health Services

Healthy employees are more adept at performing their roles safely. Our EHS, Human Resources, and third-party medical services partners play a key role in ensuring the occupational health of our employees. Industrial hygienists routinely review the physical demands of our employee job functions, while collaborating with the EHS department on repetitive motion hazards, and the potential for elevated noise exposure. In addition, we perform post-offer job testing and fit for duty testing to ensure that our employees can safely perform their jobs. We also provide all our employees with free access to the Calm App to help manage stress. Read more about employee wellness in Talent Attraction and Retention.

Our health and safety reporting process involves collaboration between EHS, Human Resources, and a third-party case management provider, Work Partners. Employee health information is stored in a secure environment where only those directly involved in the management and reporting process have access in accordance with our Personally Identifiable Information Policy.