The Oil industry is present in several segments and services spread all over the world. Although Petrobras operates predominantly in Brazil, its headquarters, it does business and operates in virtually every continent on the planet. Consequently, its professionals move to the most distant and remote places, where, in general, there is no local support from the Company. Thus, there are more challenges and complexities inherent to Petrobras’ corporate travels, as well as the likelihood of incidents is higher. Given the accelerated growth in travel demands and the consequent increase in employees traveling around the world, it was necessary to develop a dedicated internal process for international travel control. The process includes guidance to employees on security aspects before, during and after the travel, mitigation actions and support to employees at risk, as well as a channel for integration with other areas related to travel security. This article reflects the company's cultural change in reinforcing its commitment to life and safety, by creating a process and assigning a team dedicated to the care of travelers abroad, and identifies the need for improvement in parallel processes in order to improve their integration, the monitoring of scenarios and of external environments. The data that supports the article also supports the thesis that all the work of transforming the process and investing in prevention and guidance to employees only with the differential of internal production and adaptation to the Company's culture is feasible with low cost. This article reinforces the need to align travel security activities with the culture of the company and its employees so both can speak the same language and not create cultural gaps.

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Global Travels in the Oil Industry: Managing Threats and Risks Through
Orientation and Scenario Monitoring
Copyright 2019, Society of Petroleum Engineers
This paper was prepared for presentation at the SPE Symposium: Asia Pacific Health, Safety, Security, Environment and Social Responsibility held in Kuala Lumpur,
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Abstract
The Oil industry is present in several segments and services spread all over the world. Although Petrobras
operates predominantly in Brazil, its headquarters, it does business and operates in virtually every continent
on the planet. Consequently, its professionals move to the most distant and remote places, where, in general,
there is no local support from the Company. Thus, there are more challenges and complexities inherent to
Petrobras’ corporate travels, as well as the likelihood of incidents is higher. Given the accelerated growth
in travel demands and the consequent increase in employees traveling around the world, it was necessary
to develop a dedicated internal process for international travel control. The process includes guidance
to employees on security aspects before, during and after the travel, mitigation actions and support to
employees at risk, as well as a channel for integration with other areas related to travel security. This article
reflects the company's cultural change in reinforcing its commitment to life and safety, by creating a process
and assigning a team dedicated to the care of travelers abroad, and identifies the need for improvement
in parallel processes in order to improve their integration, the monitoring of scenarios and of external
environments. The data that supports the article also supports the thesis that all the work of transforming
the process and investing in prevention and guidance to employees only with the differential of internal
production and adaptation to the Company's culture is feasible with low cost. This article reinforces the
need to align travel security activities with the culture of the company and its employees so both can speak
the same language and not create cultural gaps.
Introduction
The oil industry is present all over the world: in oil producing fields; in refining and derivative plants; in
product distribution networks and on inputs and capital goods industries. This global scale, inherent to the
entire oil and energy chain, causes the displacement of professionals to all over the globe. Many of these
places are high-risk areas or have cultural differences that if untreated can be a threat to travelers.
Petrobras is a Brazilian company that runs 98% of its activities in Brazil, (Petrobras 2018), but due to the
nature of its business, it has relationships with partners all around the world. The Company currently has
business in five continents and in the following countries: Argentina, Bolivia, China, Singapore, Colombia,
André Horacio Santos, Laura Cunha, Fernando Mustafá Costa, and Mirella Lucena, Petrobras

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Paraguay, Uruguay, United States of America, Mexico, Nigeria, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom
(Petrobras 2019).
As an action to minimize exposure to the risks of its employees traveling abroad, in 2015 Petrobras began
the development of a process aimed at guiding its workforce on how to behave in international travels,
in order to mitigate the threats affecting travelers, thus acting in a preventive way and issuing preventive
alerts to them.
Due to the great concentration of activities in Brazil, but with businesses distributed around the world,
we opted for the development of a totally internal process, completly adapted to the reality of our traveling
community, especially regarding cultural issues and language restrictions.
We developed our own internal mechanisms to identify travels, evaluate destinations, prepare specific
guidelines, monitor destinations, send preventive alerts and to prepare for emergencies. The consolidation
of these mechanisms has become the structural basis for the current travel security process in the Company.
However, in the last two years (2017-2018) there has been a significant increase in employee travels
abroad and a multiplication of destinations, as well as an increase in the complexity of geopolitical scenarios
around the world, exposing travelers to threats that previously did not require the same level of concern.
Together with this new external scenario, Petrobras reinforced its commitment to life and safety in 2017,
triggering corporate actions and cultural change. The workforce protection aspect added to the activities
that already existed new challenges and greater importance.
In 2017, travelers made 1.906 trips to approximately 120 destinations in 44 countries and in 2018, this
number increased to 3.635 trips to approximately 220 destinations in 46 countries. Much of those travels
occur to destinations where the company does not have local representation or support.
This new reality has led to the need for improvement in our processes, and in particular, a reassessment
of how to guide travelers, improve integration with other areas of the Company, monitor environments and
be prepared to act in situations of criticality and crisis escalation, always focusing on the security of the
workforce.
To improve the processes, we considered four pillars: Analysis of travel data; Relationship with travelers;
Integration between the Company's areas; and Access to information and a multi-source intelligence
network (intelligence databases, social networks and open sources information).
PVP - Basis of the Process
Petrobras uses a traveler's guidance process based on the developed pillars, distributed in the Travel Security
Cycle. The objective of the process is to provide practical and up-to-date personal security guidance to
employees in overseas missions, monitor external environments where employees are present, and take
action if risk increases. The whole process has internally produced solutions and products adapted to the
Brazilian and Company cultures.
There are relations between the activities of this process and other activities of different areas of the
Company, so that the provided guidelines and decisions are aligned with each other and always focusing
on the needs of the traveler.
Analisys of Travel Data
The Company's ERP system (Enterprise Resource Planning) provides information that supports the travel
identification activity. Analyzes of data and records correlations are carried out throughout the process,
providing anticipation of demands and broadening employee's guidelines, minimizing risks involving the
physical and personal security of the traveler, including health, geopolitical and climatic issues that may
interfere with the performance of the planned activities, preserving lives, knowledge and optimizing the trip.

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The evolution of data analysis and treatment has increased the reliability of travel data. The dissemination
of this consolidated and structured information to other areas of the Company increases the collaboration
and integration with those areas.
Relationship with travelers
We adopted a strategy that includes a direct relationship with travelers, considering the specific
characteristics of the Brazilian and the Company cultures. In all the process’ actions, it is encouraged the
exchange of information, acceptence of complaints and suggestions for improvement. We convert those
feedbacks into process adjustment actions, adding value to products, increasing interactivity and eliminating
communication and service gaps.
Every six months, all the travelers receive a survey, which aims at identify their perception of our activities
and products, including opinions and suggestions and, above all, what improvement actions are in need to be
taken. The incorporation of many of those suggestions is immediate. This virtuous cycle ends up providing
a continuous improvement of the process, where the lessons learned in the qualitative answers lead to an
immediate and effective response on the recommendations and guidelines forwarded.
The relationship with travelers also identifies weaknesses or deficiencies in other activities that are
not in the direct scope of the process under study, such as Health, International Mobility, Insurance and
Management of airline tickets, so theses areas can receive information and data regarding their process in
order to make the appropriate adjustments.
The most important point in the relationship with travelers is the need to change the perception of personal
security that Brazilians generally have regarding international trips - whose understanding is that there are
no manaces against their personal security. This is especially true for trips to developed countries, which
they compare to cities where they live and are used to. This perception is the main reason for the resistance
of Brazilians to guidelines related to travel abroad.
Integration between the Company's areas
At Petrobras, there are diferent areas dealing with travel activites. The process developed, especially in the
2017-2018 period, led to a greater integration between those areas, creating discussion groups and treatment
for complex problems where there is need for joint action.
As defined by Leidel (2016) Travel Security is the "sum of all measures taken to ensure the security
of a private or business trip" and complementary actions such as health, ticket purchase, travel insurance,
hotel reservations and consular and visa support are handled in an integrated way, despite being managed
by different specialized areas.
Access to information and a multi-source intelligence network
The strategy adopted was to develop internally a tool that would concentrate multiple sources of
intelligence and information in a single interface - named as The Observation Panel - to facilitate and
expedite the collection of monitoring data. The process gives preference to preventing incidents in order to
guide the travelers before their occurrence, always reinforcing its preventive character, reducing risks for
employees and optimizing resources with emergency displacements and in extreme situations.
In countries where there is local representation of the Company, local collaborators provide support in
the validation of the information collected and they contribute with the local vision considering cultural
and daily aspects.
Part of this strategy was the acquisition of a global intelligence database, which integrated with the
tool developed internally, provided a significant improvement in the identification of incidents with a high
probability of materializing before they occur.
Incidents that are likely to happen become Security Alerts, and we forward them to travelers in the region
likely to be affected as well as to travelers with scheduled trips.

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Thus, based on these pillars (Analysis of travel data, Relationship with travelers, Integration between the
Company's areas and Access to information and a multi-source intelligence network), the company's travel
security process is structured with the objective of protecting its human resources when traveling abroad,
considering the diversity of destinations, their complexities, threats and geopolitical scenarios.
Travel Security Cycle
The process has a three-phase cycle (Petrobras 2018a):
Figure 1—Cycle of the Travel Security process
To Prevent: Collection of information on scheduled trips, identification of risks and threats of
destinations that become guidelines and preventive actions.
To Monitor: Continuous monitoring of destinations using intelligence tools. It starts with the
identification of the trip and only ends with the return of the traveler. Changes in the level of risk can trigger
new directions and actions.
To Act: The stage of direct action in the process depends on the change of the conditions where the
traveler is or requests for support from the traveler. The whole process is oriented to prevent incidents,
given the possibility of their occurrence, so first there are security alerts, which can trigger changes in the
guidelines.
PVP - Travel Security Process Description
The PVP process (Petrobras 2018a) makes use of the pillars and the cycle described above, resulting in
several products.
1. Travel identification - Consists of identifying travel data through the ERP system, which feeds a
database. After analyzing and processing the data, we make the information available in a control
dashboard developed internally, wich contains the main information used on the process, allowing the
effective management of human resources spread around the world, and the consultation of several
areas of the Company.
2. Analysis of destination's scenario - Consists of the evaluation of the destination of the trip (Country
and city). The travel security team uses multiple sources to perform the analysys and evaluates not
only the history of incidents, but also the trends and possibility of scenario changes. Below, The
Observation Panel, developed internally, that concentrates several sources of public information with
the objective of quickly identifying potential threats to travel employees, assisting the monitoring job.

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We structure the information of the destination and its scenerio according to the type of trip,
criticality to the business, the hierarchical position of the traveler and history of security incidents,
materializing in several products:
A. Travel Guidelines: personalized directions for the traveler about his or her destination, sent
electronically, adding mobility and direct access to links and contacts. The guidelines include
emergency contacts, basic country information, important legislation, local culture, political and
security risks, transport and local health informations. The Travel Guideline is sent before the
beginning of the trip to stimulate the relationship between travelers and the security area. In
addition, all guidelines are in Portuguese and adapted for both the Brazilian and the Company
cultures.
B. Expatriate Preparation: short-term interactive and face-to-face training with the expatriate
employee to provide details of security and threats, reinforcing day-to-day issues with additional
care for expatriates and their families.
C. Foreign Security Study: detailed report with evaluation and study of countries / regions to
assess the risks travelers may be exposed; it may include an action plan for special missions.
D. Security-Briefing: security-briefing material produced for foreign committes visiting Brazil.
E. Training for Travel and Activities Abroad: training for employees to improve the planning of
missions, activity or business abroad, including understanding of the culture, security aspects,
way of doing business and day-to-day living abroad.
3. Travel Alert - Whenever a change in the level of risk is detected in the monitoring, indicating a
degradation of security, an alert will be issued. Alerts can be:
A. Preventive: alerts with information about protests or social movements; climatic events; period
of great movement in the transport or programmed shutdown; strikes; the increase of contagious
diseases; increased possibility of terrorist activities, etc.
B. Change of Guidelines: alerts with recommendation of cancellation or anticipation of the end of
the trip; travel restriction; additional health care; changes in legislation or security regulations.
C. Evacuation Preparation: Alerts with specific guidelines for the preparation of a possible
evacuation.
4. Local and Remote Support - The support can consist of contacts with authorities, dedicated
transportation or monitoring of places of high risk, security-briefings, transfers etc. It can be local,
with the support of the local security force in countries where Petrobras has companies, or remote.
For remote support, there is a 24 / 7 / 365 on duty Security service.
5. Evacuation of Personnel - If the situation of a country deteriorates, whether by wars, epidemics,
nature events or social conflict, to the point where the security of the traveler is threatened or
compromised, it triggers the preparation and evacuation actions.

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Figure 2—Travel Management Dashboard - Internal Development
Figure 3—Observation Panel - Internal Development

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Figure 4—Example of Travel Guideline viewed at Desktop and Smartphone
Figure 5—Example of Expatriate Preparation Material

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Figure 6—Examples of Foreign Security Studies
Figure 7—Security-Briefing for foreign visitors
The evacuation indication is a response to situations of extreme, real and with high impact risk and
it has flexible contingency plans followed by the follow-up of the dedicated and multidisciplinary Crisis
Command, based on the Incident Command System (ICS) methodology (FEMA 2018).
The responsibility for the evacuation decision is of the company's top authority, guided by the security
area. A model called EOR - "Estrutura Organizacional de Resposta" in Portuguese, guides the evacuation.
Petrobras uses an evacuation strategy based on threat levels and in line with the Country Evacuation
Planning Guidelines (IOGP 2016).

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Figure 8—Training for Travel and Activities Abroad
Figure 9—Basic Evacuation Model - Petrobras Adaptation
The main objective of the process is to provide protection to the travelling employees. The whole method
focus in preventive actions, with the participation of the travelers in the constant evolution of the process,
considering as a guideline the individualized treatment and specificities of the Brazilian culture, but in line
with good international practices.

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PVP Data and Results
The Company's travel history since 2016 shows a growth trend in the number of trips (Petrobras 2019a):
Figure 10—Chart of evolution of the number of trips up to 180 days of duration (January / 2016 to December / 2018)
The variation around the trend line is justified by the presence of seasonality and repercussions of the
Company's internal decisions regarding travel and changes in its management.
The service index bellow evidences the success of the PVP process established by meeting the growing
demand:
Figure 11—Comparative chart of identified trips x issued guidelines
Also by the increased recognition of the quality of service provided (Petrobras 2019a):

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Figure 12—Comparative chart with improvement of travelers’ opinion from 2017 to 2018
Another metric that depicts the improvement made between 2017 and 2018 is the amount of alerts issued
(Petrobras 2019a):
Figure 13—Evolution chart of the number of security alerts forwarded to travelers
The implementation of the tools developed internally explains the increase of the alerts, in addition to the
acquisition of intelligence database. All alerts issued were of preventive nature, prior to security incidents.

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Conclusions
The Petrobras Traveler Protection process represented a major advance in the company's care with its
employees on international trips, driven by the changes in the Company, which began to focus on its
security efforts and commitment to life. Based on the premise of presenting a simple, low cost and resource
constraints solution, but highly effective for the quantity of travels undertaken.
The structure of the process enables it to be continually improved, allowing global coverage, and aiming
at the quality of the services and flexibility for increases in the number of clients served.
The cultural characteristics of the users, who are 100% Brazilians, was preponderant in the decision to
develop the process totally within the company. The option of establishing a systematic within the reality
of travelers, considering aspects of culture, perception of security and language, is a factor of success in
the initiative.
The relationship with these customers is also a factor in the success of the travel security process. The
strategy of direct user participation in identifying improvements and recording lessons learned is paramount
for a dynamic evolution, aiming to eliminate problems through changing management, that incorpores most
of the proposed changes, further enhancing the perception of security for travelers.
All the process transformation reinforces the thesis that it is possible to carry out prevention with
personalized guidance to employees, in order to meet the Company's cultural differentials in an internal and
low-cost solution. In addition, it is still able to absorb large variations in travel quantities, while improving
employees’ perception of services.
Acknowledgments
We are grateful for the support received by the various areas of Petrobras - On duty Security, International
Mobility, Travel Logistics, Health, Insurance, Intelligence, Foreign Contacts and especially to colleagues
who have always sought to respond our requests for information and have believed in innovative proposals
and the integration of activities for the security of travelers.
Nomenclature
Company - Reference to Petrobras holding and subsidiaries Companies
EOR - Organizational Response Framework
ERP - Enterprise Resource Planning - system who integrates the company processes into a
single platform.
GDL PVP - Travel Guidelines from the PVP process
ICS - Incident Command System
PVP - Petrobras Traveller Protection - "Protecao ao Viajante Petrobras" in Portuguese.
References
FEMA. 2018. Incident Command System Resources. US: Homeland Security.
https://www.fema.gov/incident-command-system-resources
IOGP. 2016. Country Evacuation Planning Guidelines. International Association of Oil & Gas Producers, Report 472,
October 2016.
Leidel, Sven. 2016. Travel Security Handbook, first edition. 328 pages. Books on Demand.
Petrobras. 2018. Petrobras Annual Report 2017. Investidor Petrobras, 15 March, 2018, http://
www.investidorpetrobras.com.br/en/annual-reports/integrated-report/annual-report (acessed 07 February 2019).
Petrobras. 2018a. Prover Orientagoes e Protegao Pessoal. Internal Report, Petrobras, Rio de Janeiro, RJ.
Petrobras. 2019. Petrobras Worldwide. Petrobras, http://www.petrobras.com.br/en/petrobras-worldwide/ (acessed 07
February 2019).
Petrobras. 2019a. PVP Annual Report 2017. Internal Report, Petrobras, Rio de Janeiro, RJ.