U.S. Department of the Interior
Minerals Management Service
Office of Communications

NEWS RELEASE

MMS Announces SAFE and Corporate Citizen Award Winners

        The U.S. Department of the Interior’s Minerals Management Service (MMS) today announced the winners of the 1998 Safety Award for Excellence (SAFE) and the Corporate Citizen award.

        The winner of the SAFE award for High OCS Activity is Exxon Company, U.S.A. The award was also presented to CNG Producing Company for Moderate OCS Activity and to Transocean Offshore, Inc. in the Contractor category.

        The SAFE award was established by MMS in 1983 to recognize and honor companies that make a concerted effort to train and motivate their employees to conduct offshore operations in a safe and environmentally responsible manner.

        MMS also announced the winners of the Corporate Citizen Award, an award given to an outstanding lessee in both offshore operating performance and fiscal responsibility. Again, Exxon Company, U.S.A. and CNG Producing Company were the award recipients.

        "These prestigious awards recognize exemplary company performance and corporate commitment to safe offshore oil and gas operations," said Acting MMS Director Tom Kitsos. "The winners of these awards represent the best of the best that the industry has to offer and set a standard all companies should strive to achieve."

        Also recognized at today’s awards program were 24 winners of the MMS Corporate Leadership Award. Complete information about MMS awards, including the criteria for the various awards, is available at www.mms.gov/eod/awards/1.htm

        MMS is the federal agency that manages the Nation's natural gas, oil and other mineral resources on the Outer Continental Shelf; and collects, accounts for, and last year disbursed about $6 billion in revenues from federal offshore mineral leases and from onshore mineral leases on federal and Indian lands.

-MMS-

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