By Al Pickett, special contributor
Eternal vigilance is, as the saying goes, the price of liberty, but it is the price of safety as well–especially in today’s hectic and fast-paced oilfield.
Krisha Marker said she received a phone call recently that she called the “greatest Valentine’s Day gift a safety person could receive.”
Marker is the owner, trainer, and coordinator for MM Safety Consultants in Odessa. She does SafeLandUSA and all safety training for the oil and gas industry, as well as H2S (hydrogen sulfide) training, new employee orientation, and ISNETWORLD setup and training for many companies. Her husband, Mike Marker, runs the completions and workovers consulting side of the business.
It was on Feb. 14 of this year when she received a phone call from someone in Roswell, N.M.
“I just wanted to say ‘thank you,’” the voice on the other end of the phone said.
“What for?” Marker asked.
“For all eight years I took your class about H2S, griping and complaining that I didn’t want to be there,” he replied. “Thank you for making me do it.”
The caller went on to explain that the day before he had been on location when two of his fellow workers went down from H2S gas.
“I went into action without really thinking,” the caller continued. “Those guys are alive today because of the training I received.”
“That is the greatest Valentine’s Day gift I could have received,” Marker beamed. “To get a ‘thank you’ is awesome.”
Kathy Young, an accountant with Safety Solutions, Inc., in Midland agreed that training is the No. 1 issue because there are so many new people working in the oil patch today.
“The focus on safety is so much greater than it was 10 years ago,” she stated. “Employees are better educated on what to do.”
“Safety is a bigger priority now, thank goodness,” acknowledged Shawn Todd, safety services manager for American Safety Services, which has offices in Odessa as well as in Hobbs and Artesia, N.M. “Smaller companies are buying into the need for more emphasis on safety, but we still have a big influx of inexperienced people who are in the oil and gas industry to make a buck. They are getting some training, but not to the standard they should be. In the past, there was a lack of interest (in safety) from producers. But that is changing. Many of them are taking it to the next level.”
But despite the increased focus on safety, accidents still happen.
A Dangerous Profession
The story of two workers on a well site going down because of the deadly H2S gas that can often be associated with oil and gas wells in the Permian Basin emphasizes just how dangerous working in the oil and gas industry can be and how important it is to have proper training.
The San Antonio Express News used the Freedom of Information Act to obtain details about accident investigations in the Eagle Ford Shale oil fields since 2009 as part of a copyrighted story in February. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) records show that safety violations were found in every one of 11 fatal accidents that have occurred in the last three years in the Eagle Ford Shale play in South Texas, according to the newspaper report.
Fatal or serious accidents in the oil patch most often happen when workers are struck by equipment or caught between tongs, pipe or trucks backing up, electrocution when the rig is not properly grounded with 8-foot ground rods, or falls from pulling units, drilling rigs, and trucks.
OSHA, however, focuses just on workplace safety and doesn’t investigate perhaps the most dangerous aspect of oil and gas company employees’ work–getting to and from the well site. The San Antonio Express News’ reported that 40 oil and gas workers were killed in traffic accidents on Texas public roads between 2009 and 2011.
Safety on the Road
“Driving is one of the biggest concerns,” Marker agreed. “Smart phones have made stupid drivers.”
She said she tells her classes that “every day is a GD2D,” which means a “Good Day to Die,” if they don’t pay attention.
Although there are a lot of relatively inexperienced CDL drivers on the road these days during the current oil boom, Marker pointed out there are a lot more inexperienced drivers in cars, pickups, and SUVs on the road.
“You have to be defensive,” she emphasized. “Big trucks can’t stop or swerve at the drop of a hat. Big trucks are often involved in wrecks, but many times cars, pickups, or SUVs cause the accidents. It is a sad situation. I tell people that it is not ‘if,’ it is ‘when’ they will have an accident. The outcome, whether it is an accident or a near-miss, depends on how they react to a situation.”
Kevin Hokett, president and owner of American Safety Services, said the traffic these days in the Midland/Odessa area is “unbelievable.”
“It is crazy, especially between the peak hours of 6 a.m. [to 8 a.m.] and 5 p.m.,” he stated. “We see major accidents all the time. It is not just on Interstate 20, either. It is on all highly traveled roads in and around the city. We regularly see accidents at the highway intersections near our facility (on the Andrews Highway on the north side of Odessa).”
Supervising Risk
Todd pointed out that American Safety Services is a diverse company that also includes American Production Services and includes vacuum trucks, water hauling, kill trucks, roustabout crews, painting crews, dump trucks and backhoes. It also rents light plants and generators and has a flowback division. The safety division of the company offers not only safety supplies for the oil and gas industry, but also rents safety equipment and serves and maintains that equipment.
“We also have field consultants that go out to the site to supervise high-risk jobs, such as H2S, confined spaces, hot work jobs, and trenching and excavation,” he continued.
He cited examples of “hot work jobs” include the use of welding or cutting torches, anything that creates a risk for fire.
“We go out to the site to make sure the job is safe,” he added.
Todd also described “confined space” as any space that is not designed for people, such as workers going inside a tank battery to clean it.
“We have consultants that go to the job site to make sure the work is done safely,” he added. “They are very versed in doing that work and trained to do rescues. They will help companies to write permits and supervise the work. We also have safety equipment such as breathing air trailers to make sure the work is done safely. We install H2S equipment and train people how to use respirator equipment. We provide that equipment, and we have safety consultants that are specialists in working in an H2S environment.”
Hokett said American Safety Services not only does safety training on site, but it also teaches safety classes at its facility in Odessa.
“We are adding a 13,000-square-foot addition to our building that will include a 100-person training room,” he noted.
Safety Supplies
Although Safety Solutions does safety training, including certified H2S, confined space and SafeLand training as well as full safety training on exposure in the oil and gas industry and specialized training to fit a particular customer’s needs, the training makes up only 20 percent of her company’s business, according to Young.
“We are also a complete safety supply store,” she added, noting that the Midland store offers fire-resistant clothing, lanyards, safety glasses, first-aid supplies, and eye-wash stations, just to name a few of the safety-related items one can find at Safety Solutions.
She said her company offers fire extinguisher maintenance. It will do a walk-through, too, to help businesses know if they are in compliance to meet insurance and OSHA requirements.
Safety Solutions offers showering trailers and emergency response trailers in case of chemical spills, Young continued. She noted it furnishes air trailers and air cylinders, too, so workers can continue to be on the well site even if there is deadly H2S gas present.
“We also do rig-ups and put H2S monitors on site,” she added. “We can set up a wireless system that monitors gas and can set off alarms on the perimeter. We are also working on a system that will send reports to a supervisor at their district office of H2S alarms that have gone off. You may have a manager of six different wells, and that way he can know when an alarm goes off, even if he isn’t on that site. We are working on that system, but it is not there yet for mass production.”
Deadly H2S
Complacency or a lack of knowledge of the dangers of H2S causes fatal accidents in the industry every year, according to Hokett.
“We see a number of H2S-related deaths each year,” Todd added. “There was a man who went into a well cellar near Lamesa several months ago to work on the well or close a valve. He didn’t do the proper checks or have the proper monitor, and he never came out.”
One of the things that make the deadly hydrogen sulfide gas so dangerous, according to Young, is that you can’t smell it.
“The drill bit can hit pockets of H2S and get a gas kick, so the potential is always there,” she claimed.
Because of that, workers are required to wear H2S monitors, historically around their hips. That is not good enough anymore, however.
“People become complacent,” Marker observed. “It is hard to get folks to realize the importance of H2S monitors. We have found that some were wearing them on their hard hat. If they are wearing them there, it is too late when it goes off. We have a lot of healthy folks in the oil patch these days, too, who have ‘Dunlap’s Disease’ where their belly has done lapped over their belt. The monitor doesn’t do any good if it is covered up–it cannot alert you of the hazardous atmosphere.
“OSHA now requires H2S monitors be worn 12 to 18 inches below their nose in front of their chest. They are no longer supposed to be worn on your hip. You must be able to hear the alarm or monitor. You have to hear it or feel it to have the opportunity to get out in time. People also need to know what ‘upwind’ means: clean wind blowing in your face. When the alarm goes off, they have to move their feet and move upwind.”
Marker emphasized that understanding what terms such as “upwind” mean and developing safe habits through repetition are critical when working in the oil and gas industry, whether it involves H2S or any other potential risk.
Generation Gap
Young observed there is a “25-year gap” in the oil and gas industry.
“For 25 years, our industry was in decline,” she stated. “And now the oil and gas industry is putting people back to work. With three percent unemployment, it is hard to find quality people.”
Marker acknowledged that there is a generation gap in the oil and gas industry today which greatly impacts training and giving knowledge to new workers.
“You have the ‘Greatest Generation,’ our parents’ generation, that worked 9 to 5 and stopped to smell the roses,” she explained. “Then there are the baby boomers. We work all the time so our kids will have everything. ‘Generation Y’ will work, but they have a need to know why. They are all about technology, but they have to know why, when, and who needs the job completed. The only constant is change. It [the worker’s fate] all boils down to how you speak and how they understand and react.”
As the workforce changes, Young and Marker agreed that it is critical that workers receive the proper training to not only avoid accidents but to also know how to react in case there is an accident.
“(Safety training) has always been important,” Marker claimed. “But companies are requiring more to make sure their vendors get the proper training. It is a liability issue. Although there hasn’t been a fatality yet, we have already had five or six different situations in which there were near misses in the first two months this year. In my world, it is not if, it is when. I tell people in my training classes that I want them to avoid becoming a statistic. You become a statistic if you are killed or injured.”