Page 16 - OHS, September 2020

OIL & GAS
How Safety Has Become a Priority for the Oil Sector
The oil and gas industry is an inherently hazardous business.
BY HENRY BERRY
The oil and gas sector has always been inherently risky. No matter how far mitigating efforts go, and by how much technology improves, it is unlikely that risk will be removed entirely from industry operations anytime soon. Any field that utilizes heavy machinery as a core component is going to have elevated risk.
That being said, the sector has made huge strides to better protect those who serve it—something that is very much reflected in the decreasing number of sector-wide deaths, year after year. According to UK Oil & Gas’ annual 2019 report, between 1996 and 2007, there were 21 fatalities in the UK oil sector. Between 2007 and 2018, however, there were only five.
Industry leaders are constantly pursuing new ways in which they can tighten up the industry’s safety standards, and one would hope that this is stemming from an altruistic standpoint. If not that, however, then hopefully this is purely from a fear of consequent litigation and potential financial repercussions that follow on-site accidents, fatal or otherwise.
Aspiring for greater standards of safety does not just benefit the workers, however. Fewer accidents invariably result in fewer environmental accidents as well. The oil industry, traditionally perceived as being one of the sectors preventing environmental progress most, is desperately trying to become more environmentally sustainable where it is able, and a reduction in accidents certainly helps in that regard.
What Exactly Are the Risks within the Industry?
It is first worth examining in further detail some of the more common hazards and risks associated with the industry. When asked about the practice, most people will say with confidence that oil drilling is dangerous. When probed further, however, relatively few people seem to know about the specific hazard of the industry, themselves. Never has health and safety been less of a box-ticking exercise for an industry than it has for the oil sector, where failures can have the ultimate of consequences.
The most common form of accidents that occur on-site (both onshore and offshore) include:
Caught-in accidents. These hazards are, as they say, “on the tin.” They occur when someone becomes caught between or pinned by moving parts from which they cannot easily extricate themselves. One of the most common examples of caught-in hazards is a driller’s clothing becoming caught in revolving/ rotating parts such as a rig’s drive shaft.
Vehicle collisions. Collisions between vehicles present the industry’s deadliest hazard, when examined statistically. Yet, in many ways, it is a hazard that still does not garner the recognition or attention it requires (though this is changing as we shall see later on). Fatigue and poor pre-planning are among the leading causes of these on-road accidents.
Explosions/fires. Flammable gases and chemicals are handled and dealt with every day on an oil site.
12 Occupational Health & Safety | SEPTEMBER 2020
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