The International Marine Contractors Association (IMCA) has released its 2024 Safety Statistics Report, revealing that ‘line of fire’ incidents were the leading cause of lost time injuries (LTIs), accounting for more than half (52%) of all such cases among marine contractor members.
IMCA has tracked safety metrics annually since 1996 and found that the overall Lost Time Injury Rate (LTIR) held steady at 0.3 incidents per million hours worked, and a significant improvement from 2010, when the rate was more than double.
While the LTIR evened out, the Total Recordable Injury Rate (TRIR) moved upward from 1.07 to 1.1 injuries per million hours worked, echoing wider trends seen across the energy industry.
Offshore operations with IMCA contractors, however, saw a marginal improvement, dropping from 1.47 in 2023 to 1.38 in 2024.
Beyond ‘line of fire’ injuries, slips and trips were the second most frequent cause of LTIs, recording 22% of incidents.
Improvements seen
Yet, perhaps most notably, the Fatal Accident Rate (FAR) saw a marked improvement, halving from 0.63 fatalities per 100 million hours worked in 2023 to 0.3 in 2024.
For offshore personnel, that figure dropped to a record low of 0.18. Data for the report came from 198 IMCA contractor members, contributing a record-breaking 1,015,000 hours, marking the most comprehensive dataset in the association’s history.
The report was unveiled on 15th May 2025 at SEC Glasgow, during a safety session within the offshore wind stream at All-Energy—the UK’s premier renewable and low-carbon energy exhibition.
“I am delighted by the increase in IMCA members reporting their safety statistics. Reaching over one billion working hours of data is a true milestone,” said IMCA CEO Iain Grainger, who chaired the All-Energy safety session. “Collaboration and integrity are two of our core values and the willingness of our members to share their data for the good of the industry is a clear reflection of this,” he said, adding, “The key question for industry safety professionals now is ‘how do we drive down incident rates still further?’. Line of fire incidents will become a key focus for us in the year ahead, and we look forward to working closely with our members and partner organisations to achieve genuine progress in this area.”
Jim Cullen, IMCA technical director, shared, “The annual IMCA safety statistics report provides essential input to how our sector is performing. I’m pleased that we have had a record high number of almost 200 member companies contributing their statistics. We should not rest until all IMCA contractor members contribute and report to get the best possible picture of where to focus our collaborative future efforts on injury reduction.”
