Proper safety training and precautions will help your people and your profits.
Safety is an important topic in this industry. For the companies providing gas, oil and mining support services, it is one of the biggest factors for success. A bad safety record will get you run out of the oilfields in a hurry.
June is National Safety Month. It’s not specific to this industry, but it carries extra weight in this industry, where small mistakes can have dire consequences.
Over 450,000 workers were employed in the oil and gas extraction and support industries in 2011, according to the Occupational Health and Safety Administration. These workers engaged in many different industrial processes involved with drilling and servicing wells. These processes frequently require the use of specialized equipment and specialized work crews, which makes proper safety training all the more important. From 2003 to 2010, 823 oil and gas extraction workers were killed on the job – a fatality rate seven times greater than the rate for all U.S. industries.
OSHA’s industry incident reports are a quick and sobering reminder of what can go wrong in your workplace, and the severity of the consequences. Here are a handful of event descriptions, in order as they were listed in the report:
- Employee is killed in fall from drilling rig
- Crane strikes power line, employee is electrocuted
- Employee is killed when crushed by drill rig
- Employee is killed when run over by truck
- Employee is killed when struck by flying object
- Employee is killed when struck by pressurized hose
- Employee is caught between trailer and truck, is killed
- Employee is struck by liquid under pressure, later dies
Accidents will inevitably – though often tragically – happen, but most can be prevented with proper training, precaution and oversight.
Crossfire LLC, the company profiled in this month’s GOMC cover story, is a great example. The company takes safety training very seriously, and its CenterPoint Fire and Safety Program has been a big part of its success. Safety training is required for both in-house and client personnel. In fact, CenterPoint is so highly regarded by the industry that competitors have applied for training.
In 2013, Crossfire logged over 2 million man-hours worked, and over 11 million miles driven. Their Total Recordable Incidence Rate – based on recorded injuries in a calendar year, normalized per 100 workers, and divided by total man-hours worked – was 0.37; the industry average is 2.0 to 3.0. Their Experience Modification Rate, a number used by insurance companies to gauge past cost of injuries and future chance of risk, was 0.68; the industry average is defined as 1.0. High safety marks translate into reduced costs for both Crossfire and its clients. Clients appreciate lower risks, and that drives much of Crossfire’s business.
Maybe your company isn’t big enough or doesn’t have the resources to build a training program on par with Crossfire, but there are still lessons to be learned from the company’s efforts. And any additional efforts you make to train and educate your workers will pay huge dividends.
In this month’s Safety First column, Doug Day outlines five important topics to help build safety awareness within your company. Much of it may seem obvious, but that’s the thing with safety: The necessary precautions can sometimes be so obvious that they are ignored or taken for granted. Don’t let that happen in your business. Keep safety top of mind with all your people. It’s one of the biggest favors you can do for them.
Enjoy this month’s issue.
_80_80_c1.jpg)
Comments