Atlas Oil Company was named the Excellence in Health and Safety award winner and a finalist in the Trucking Company of the Year and Oilfield Services Company of the Year award categories at the 2018 Rocky Mountain Oil and Gas Awards for their outstanding work and impressive safety record in the region.

For the fourth time in the past decade, Dominion Energy Ohio has received the American Gas Association (AGA) Safety Achievement Award for excellence in employee safety. The award recognized Dominion Energy Ohio's 2017 employee safety performance. The award is natural gas utility industry trade group's highest employer safety honor.

Digitalization has improved safety over the past three years, even where cutbacks have been widespread, according to 40 percent of those surveyed by DNV GL. “Technology has helped us improve safety monitoring systems; data analytics helps us determine which processes, areas and equipment are more accident-prone; while we have wearable equipment to monitor workers in case they faint or fall,” noted one respondent, Lu Nianming, secretary-general of the China Chemical Safety Association (CCSA).

Did the cost cutting that came as the result of lower oil prices beginning in 2014 place the oil and gas industry at a higher safety risk? Though the perception is largely positive—49 percent of the respondents in DNV GL’s survey do not think that the focus on profitability in recent years has negatively impacted safety performance—the responses are mixed, with some expressing their concern to the contrary.

Pacific Gas and Electric Company (PG&E) has announced that it has appointed Jon Franke to the role of Vice President of Safety and Health for the company, effective Sept. 1. Franke is currently PG&E’s Vice President of Power Generation.

A previous NIOSH report (2016)1 described the death of nine oil and gas extraction workers that occurred during gauging or sampling activities at open thief hatches on crude oil storage tanks. Hydrocarbon gases and vapors (HGVs) and associated oxygen displacement were the primary or contributory factors in these fatalities.

Noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) among Canadian oil and gas drilling sector workers has increased by 12 per cent, from 33 per cent in 2012 to 45 per cent in 2017, according to hearing-test data collected by employers. Even more alarming: out of the 294 oil and gas drilling workers with NIHL, 194 — 65 per cent — were under the age of 35.

A blowout and massive fire at an oil well in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma January 22, 20118 occurred shortly after drilling crew members removed the drill pipe from the well in a process known as “tripping,” according to the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB), which has found that that conditions existed that could have allowed a gas influx into the wellbore during the tripping operation.

Radians recently launched VolCore™, their new line of Flame Resistant (FR) workwear that helps protect workers from short-term thermal hazards, including arc flash and flash fire. VolCore AR/FR workwear self-extinguishes and does not melt when exposed to flame, dramatically reducing the severity of burn injuries.

OSHA has cited Patterson-UTI Drilling, Crescent Consulting LLC, and Skyline Directional Drilling LLC for exposing employees to fire and explosion hazards after five employees suffered fatal injuries.