In January of this year, five bodies were recovered from one of the deadliest oil rig explosions in Oklahoma since 2010, when the Deepwater Horizon accident happened in the Gulf of Mexico. The rig that exploded was owned by Houston’s Patterson-UTI, which is one of the largest hydraulic and drilling companies in the United States. The explosion was so horrific that the burned bodies could not be recovered from the flames for days.
Patterson-UTI has been working overtime for a decade to revamp its image because they were once known as one of the worst offenders when it came to safety in the energy industry, but their adherence to safety may be called into question once again.
The explosion is an obvious setback to Patterson-UTI Energy which has tried very hard to restore its image in the industry over the past decade. Known as one of the worst of the worst energy companies in terms of safety, it has worked tirelessly to clean things up and to restore itself as a reputable business, but it may now be even more of a challenge.
The accident happened at the drilling site of Quinton, Oklahoma, just about one hundred miles outside of Tulsa. There were over twenty workers present at the site at the time of the explosion. Luckily, 16 of them were able to flee and were spared without any major injuries. There was just one Patterson-UTI employee who was lifted by air to the hospital, but after being treated, he was released.
In the 2000s, Patterson-UTI had the most fatalities of any other work side in the United States. In 2008, a report was released on the Senate floor indicating that there were 12 workers killed at the Texas drilling site in a four-year span.
Although aware of its indiscretions, Patterson-UTI’s practices didn’t cease to end in tragedy. According to OSHA, Patterson-UTI’s accidents have been less frequent, but still continued to happen. In 2010, a worker was killed at the rig site near San Antonio, and in August of the following year, another fatality occurred at the rig near Carrizo Springs.
There was also a citation in 2012 when a worker fell off a rig and to his death. Federal investigators noted that the beams of the rig were so caked with oil that they were barely visible, which was likely the cause for the worker’s fall.
Hendricks, the CEO who came onboard in 2012 as the company was trying to restore their reputation, maintains that the company has spent more than $150 million trying to upgrade their equipment and enhance safety training to reduce workplace hazards. The company has instilled a “stop work” if any hazard is noticed, whereby everyone on the rig is supposed to cease operations immediately.
The rig that exploded was operated by Red Mountain Energy and had drilled nearly two and half miles underground, at which point, the explosion happened. The youngest of the victims of the explosion was 26-year-old Cody Risk, who had only been working with with the company for two weeks when the explosion happened.
The death of this young worker has enlivened some debate about training periods and the risk that new workers pose to industries, particularly industries that involve manual labor. Workers are in short supply, so most of the people who are working on rigs don’t have the experience or industry knowledge to be there, but are there anyway.
Authorities believe that since Patterson-UTI has begun to clean up their act, things have become more safer in the oil rig industry. They were doing a fairly good job of restoring their reputation in the industry and had an increasingly positive record of worker safety until the recent incident in January.
Although it is not acceptable to lose anyone in an oil rig explosion, oil rigging is a very dangerous industry and workers who sign up for the job are aware of the risks. Patterson-UTI appears to have escaped the incident in January without too much damage to its recovering reputation. If it can manage to avoid any major accidents in the future, they just might be able to salvage themselves after yet another accident.
