I usually like to choose my weekly blog topics stemmed from something I have recently been thinking about or an event that is happening. Hence, the blog I wrote last week was appropriately timed about the Thanksgiving Parade. It is too early for my Christmas blog so I won’t jump on the early Christmas bandwagon just yet! Something else that has been on my mind has been safety. For unfortunate reasons, I think safety has been a top concern for most of us lately. However, I want to keep the focus on oil & gas safety.
Recently, I took a class along with some tests and bam! I got a safety certification! Specifically in the oil & gas industry of course. It was actually quite interesting. I learned a lot about the safety policies and procedures along with what to do if an unsafe situation were to arise. Another recent event that got my wheels turning in regards to safety was the unfortunate event in Azerbaijan where 32 workers died due to a fire on the Caspian Sea oil platform. I know throughout the years we have heard about accidents big and small taking place in the oil & gas industry. Some say that the industry is the Big Bad Wolf and dangerous so safety comes second. This is not necessarily true.
Workplace safety is actually a big concern in the industry. As the years have passed, the amount of incidents have decreased significantly and oil rigs are…well really quite safe! Working on an oil rig is no easy task. There are a lot of potential dangers and unsafe situations that could occur if people are not cautious. You can see proof of this with people from years passed that have missing fingers and toes. However the industry has worked hard to improve their safety standards by providing safety training, increasing automation, and changes in the work culture. According to Forbes, accident rates has steadily dropped in the industry since the 1990s. So much so that the industry is actually now safer than many regular occupations.
One thing that caught my eye when looking into the injury statistics for industry was OSHA’s stats on incident rates. For example, the TRIR for oil rig operations is 2.1 whereas the TRIR for real estate is 3.3. It has a lower count than real estate! Interesting! Take a look at the chart below. You are able to see the number of cases and incident rate for each industry. In this infographic, the oil industry is being named under “mining.”
The industry has taken many measures to make it a safer place to work. I am sure there will continue to be incidents but it is good to see that it has been a steady decline. Especially since the oil industry tends to get a bad rap.
