The IOGP Life-Saving Rules: a practical guide
What the nine IOGP Life-Saving Rules are, why they replaced the old 18, and how to operationalise them across observations, permits and investigations.
The IOGP Life-Saving Rules are a short, memorable set of controls aimed squarely at the activities most likely to kill someone. They were developed by the International Association of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP) after analysing hundreds of fatal incidents across the industry, and they have become a common safety language on sites well beyond oil and gas — including fabrication yards, mining, and civil construction.
The nine rules
In 2018 IOGP consolidated an earlier, sprawling set of 18 rules into nine simpler ones (published as IOGP Report 459). Each rule names a single, concrete action a worker can take to protect themselves and the people around them:
| Rule | The action it demands |
|---|---|
| Bypassing Safety Controls | Get authorisation before overriding or disabling a safety control |
| Confined Spaces | Get authorisation before entering a confined space |
| Driving | Follow safe-driving rules and wear a seatbelt |
| Energy Isolation | Verify isolation and zero energy before work begins |
| Hot Work | Control ignition sources before hot work |
| Line of Fire | Keep yourself and others out of the line of fire |
| Safe Mechanical Lifting | Plan lifts and control the area |
| Work Authorisation | Work with a valid permit when one is required |
| Working at Height | Protect yourself against a fall when working at height |
Because analysis showed the same handful of activities behind the majority of fatalities, the value of the rules is their focus: nine things everyone can remember beats a policy no one reads.
Why the rules alone are not enough
A poster in the crib room does not stop a fatality. The rules only work when they are wired into how the work actually runs:
- At capture. When a worker logs a hazard observation or a permit is raised, the relevant rule should surface automatically — a lift near rated capacity flags Safe Mechanical Lifting; work above two metres flags Working at Height.
- In the risk picture. Each rule maps to critical controls in your bowtie analysis. A trend of near-misses against one rule is early evidence that a control is degrading.
- In investigations. When you run an ICAM investigation, classifying the event against a Life-Saving Rule tells you whether a fatal-risk control failed — and whether the same control is exposed elsewhere.
Operationalising the rules
The organisations that get value from the Life-Saving Rules treat them as a classification that runs through everything, not a separate campaign:
- Tag once, everywhere. Apply the same rule classification to observations, permits, incidents and audits so your leading indicators and your investigations speak one language.
- Watch the leading signals. Count observations and near-misses by rule. Rising volume against a rule is a leading indicator worth acting on before it becomes an incident — see leading vs lagging indicators.
- Close the loop. When a rule is breached, the resulting corrective actions should verify the critical control is back in place — not just that a form was filled in.
This is exactly the model Contego is built around: one fatal-risk lens running through observation, risk, investigation, action and audit. If you want to see it working end to end, book a walkthrough.