Honors and Awards
Responsible Care® Company of the Year
OxyChem is a five-time winner of the American Chemistry Council's top safety performance award, including the "Responsible Care® Company of the Year" award in 2015, in recognition of outstanding achievements in environmental, health, safety and security performance.
OSHA Voluntary Protection Program
Eighteen OxyChem facilities, including the headquarters in Dallas, have achieved Star Status identifying them as among the safest work sites in the U.S. under the Occupational Safety & Health Administration's (OSHA) Voluntary Protection Program.
Vinyl Institute Awards
The Vinyl Institute (VI) recently recognized seven OxyChem and OxyVinyls plants for excellence in worker safety and environmental protection. The awards are based on facility performance against guidelines and standards established by federal agencies, such as OSHA and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Safety Excellence Award
The Safety Excellence award is presented to plants that for five or more consecutive years have demonstrated the lowest OSHA-recordable worker injury or illness rate in the industry. Recipients of the 2016 award include:
Convent, Louisiana, ethylene dichloride (EDC) operations, for seven consecutive years
Geismar, Louisiana, EDC operations, for five consecutive years
Niagara Falls, Ontario, Canada, polyvinyl chloride (PVC), for eight consecutive years
Safety Performance Award
The Safety Performance Award recognizes efforts to improve worker safety based on OSHA's recordable incidence rate for that year. Five companies representing 15 facilities in the PVC and EDC/vinyl chloride monomer (VCM) categories were presented the award for 2016, including these OxyChem and OxyVinyls facilities:
Convent, Louisiana, EDC operations
Deer Park, Texas, EDC/VCM operations
Geismar, Louisiana, EDC operations
Ingleside, Texas, EDC/VCM operations
Niagara Falls, Ontario, PVC
Pasadena, Texas, PVC
Environmental Excellence Award
The Environmental Excellence Award is given to facilities with an outstanding record of environmental performance for five or more years. OxyChem and OxyVinyls recipients of the award include:
Ingleside, Texas, EDC/VCM operations, for eight consecutive years
Pedricktown, New Jersey, PVC, for 10 consecutive years
Geismar, Louisiana, EDC operations, for five consecutive years
Chlorine Institute Awards
In 2016, OxyChem facilities in Ingleside, Texas; New Johnsonville, Tennessee; Niagara Falls, New York; Taft, Louisiana; and Wichita, Kansas received Chlorine Institute (CI) Process Safety Awards. The awards are presented to North American facilities based upon performance involving chlor-alkali operations, as well as the safe handling of chemicals including chlorine, sodium hydroxide and vinyl chloride monomer.
Chlorine Institute Chairman's Safety Excellence Award
OxyChem's Ingleside, Texas, plant received the Chlorine Institute Chairman's Safety Excellence Award in 2015. To receive the Chairman's Award, a facility must sustain zero OSHA-recordable injuries, zero EPA Risk Management Program (RMP) incidents and zero EPA-reportable quantity releases (RQ) for chlor-alkali chemicals over CI-specified milestone goals based on work hours. Ingleside employees have worked more than 1.6 million hours (since October 2010) without an incident.
Rail Transportation Safety Awards
OxyChem is a winner of CSX Transportation's 2016 Chemical Safety Excellence Award. This award recognizes companies that ship more than 600 tank cars of federally regulated hazardous material on the CSX railroad network without a single incident resulting in a non-accidental release during the entire year. OxyChem also received the Canadian National (CN) Railway Company Safe Handling Award for its performance in 2016. The CN award recognizes companies that ship more than 100 tank cars of dangerous goods without single incident resulting in a non-accidental release during the entire year.
Fleet Safety Awards
OxyChem's Private Carriage organization was recognized by the Kansas Motor Carriers Association KMCA for outstanding highway safety performance in 2016. Private Carriage travels more than 3 million miles annually across the United States delivering products to our customers. This mileage includes over 1 million miles traveled in the state of Kansas.
American Chemistry Council Energy Efficiency Award
OxyChem plants in Texas and Louisiana received 2016 American Chemistry Council (ACC) Responsible Care® Energy Efficiency Awards for six energy-efficiency improvements. Combined, energy savings resulting from these OxyChem projects in 2015 equated to energy savings of 387,000 MMBTU, or 70,000 barrels of oil equivalent, which contributed to a reduction of 24,000 tons of greenhouse gases.
Conservation Award
Employees at OxyChem's Geismar, Louisiana, and Wichita, Kansas, plants have received international recognition for their contribution to wildlife habitat conservation by achieving the Wildlife Habitat Council's Wildlife at WorkSM certification.
OxyChem's Wichita Plant and its affiliate Glenn Springs Holdings, Inc. received the Wildlife Habitat Council's 2014 Prairies for Tomorrow award for their conservation and prairie restoration efforts at the Prairie Wetlands Conservation Area adjacent to OxyChem's Wichita facility. The project is successfully restoring the land to its natural state of valuable upland wildlife habitat while also providing learning opportunities for the community's children and adults.
"Caring for Texas" Award
The Texas Chemical Council "Caring for Texas" award program recognizes companies for their performance in community awareness, emergency response, security and pollution prevention.
In 2016, the following OxyChem facilities received TCC "Caring for Texas" Awards: OxyVinyls, Battleground, calcium (CA); OxyVinyls, Deer Park, PVC, potassium hydroxide (KOH), CA; OxyVinyls, Deer Park, VCM; OxyVinyls, La Porte, VCM; OxyVinyls, Pasadena, PVC; and the Dallas Silicates plant.
Louisiana Chemical Association (LCA) S.A.F.E.
OxyChem's Convent and Taft plants were recognized as the Best in Louisiana by the Louisiana Chemical Association S.A.F.E. (Serious About Fostering Excellence) program for their excellence in safety, PSM, environmental performance and support of the local community.
Invensys Operations Management
OxyChem's Taft, Louisiana, plant was awarded the Best Mobile Solution in Invensys Operations Management's annual Wonderware Open competition for its use of Wonderware IntelaTrac to ensure the proper function of critical instruments in its manufacturing facilities. Functional checks are performed on equipment to prevent and mitigate hazardous chemical release during routine and emergency operations.
City of Dallas Water Utilities Department Blue Thumb Award
OxyChem's Dallas Silicates plant received the 2016 City of Dallas Water Utilities Department Blue Thumb Award, which recognizes local industrial plants that have excellent compliance history. This is the 24nd consecutive year that the plant has been honored with the award. In order to receive the award in a given year (July 1 through June 30), an industrial manufacturer must be in compliance with all discharge limits and reporting requirements.
Waste Minimization, Reuse and Recycling Awards
OxyChem plants in Geismar, Louisiana; Wichita, Kansas; and Taft, Louisiana received American Chemistry Council (ACC) Responsible Care® Waste Minimization, Reuse and Recycling Awards for with significant achievements in promoting recycling and reuse activities in 2015.
