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Permalink Reply by Mac Davis on September 16, 2009 at 10:01

One of my other historical interests is railroads.

I see the current O&G industry as being like the railroads in the 19th and early 20th century. Robber baron mentality. Workers are equipment that can be discarded if damaged or destroyed. Pressure for speed and profit at all costs. Workers can go along with the flow or find another line of work.

There are lots of safety improvements that are available on new rigs, especially offshore rigs, that get workers out of the jaws of death. Unfortunately, the drillers have little incentive to buy safer rigs or replace older, but more dangerous rigs.

Putting safety ahead of speed and cost would probably improve things quite a bit.

Unfortunately, I don't see any real improvement happening anytime soon.

Hmmm.... Maybe we can drop Obama a note and suggest that he can cut down on the amount of drilling in the US by requiring some actual worker safety on the drilling rigs.

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Permalink Reply by BirdDawg, plain ole' idiot on September 16, 2009 at 13:11

Mac,
Please do not take my response as argumentative. I enjoy your posts.
But this my take on this issue. Oil and Gas are very safety concious these days. Insurance and other reasons dictate this. But, the cold hard facts remain. It is a very dangerous business. I feel so much for the families and people that have but hurt or killed on any rig. I grew up with my father and grandfather working in this business. And they told many stories of death and injuries on their locations.
I know things have improved tremondously since their times, but things, I am sure, still have room for improvement. But I do not think that any reputable O&G company will deliberately put their employees in harms way this day and time. It is just a dangerous business at times.

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Permalink Reply by Mac Davis on September 16, 2009 at 18:04

Yes, things have improved. Yes, they take some safety measures. They may even have convinced themselves they're doing everything they can to protect the workers.

I'd like to see government mandates to start building all the new rigs in safer designs. Phase the old ones out gradually.

I'm familiar with safety equipment in factory equipment, industrial locations, etc. I think the kinds of things required in such locations could drastically cut the accident and death rates on oil rigs if you redesign the rigs properly.

There are just too many things on the drilling rig where the workers are standing in the jaws of death with something that will crush them if something goes wrong. People are standing around flinging chains and heavy equipment that grabs the pipe. They have to manhandle pipe to stack it up. They have to snag pipe with chains and drag them around. Many of these jobs could be done with proper equipment where there's no human beings in the path of things that can kill them.

You just don't see this kind of stuff in most factory environment. Equipment is designed, most of the time, to keep the humans out of the danger zone.

Some people will say that drilling is more like construction, where things are more ad hoc, and you have to fly by the seat of your pants. I disagree. The standard operations of a drilling rig are repetitive jobs that could be redesigned for safety.

I've seen some information on offshore rigs where the dangerous bits of the drilling operation are much more mechanized and keep the humans out of the danger zone. Unfortunately, it seems this is being done to reduce labor costs and speed drilling, rather than for worker safety.

I realize it won't happen overnight. I do think we should start immediately as rigs are replaced.

More later on bad safety processes. Enough drilling mud slinging for now.

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