Last year APPEA set up a 300-person forum - the first of its kind in the world - comprising chief executives, workforce representatives, industry regulators and safety professionals.

The APPEA Safety Leadership Forum, which met in August, heard much about how well the Australian petroleum industry's safety performance compared with its international peers, according to Beckett.

"But rather than rest on our laurels, the forum decided that 276 members of our workforce harmed the previous year was too high," he said.

"In fact, the figure galvanised the group to support a target to reduce injury rates in the industry by 25 percent year on year."

The APPEA Safety Leadership Forum is moving to ensure companies no longer work in isolation from industry peers so all members can learn from shared lessons, according to Beckett.

"CEOs from across Australia's oil and gas industry met again yesterday to follow up and build on key safety leadership initiatives," he said.

"Companies are listening to the workforce and ensuring real action to improve safety outcomes."

Beckett said by the time the annual APPEA Safety Conference was held next August, the industry would have in place:

• common safety training for all in the industry;
• a new study of how to best harness the Australian culture for better safety outcomes;
• new tools to improve managers' supervision skills;
• a new guide on "Safety Best Practices" for all members; and
• the selection of some new leading key performance indicators which could better monitor safety improvements.