With blisteringly hot days being the summertime norm, the oilfield–a place where technology is king–needed technology to cope with triple-digit temperatures. And it is getting it.
By Al Pickett, special contributor
The thermometer is topping 100 degrees and it seems even hotter working on a drilling rig in the hot West Texas sun. In other words, it is another typical summer day in the Permian Basin oil patch.
Whether it is the potential of flash fires, poisonous hydrogen sulfide, or the many other dangers associated with working on a drilling rig, heat stress is one more thing that oil and gas industry health and safety supervisors have to worry about.
Directives from the Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) requiring workers on drilling rigs to wear flame retardant clothing (FRC) and to take breaks every hour because of the requirement of wearing heavier FRC clothing has caused clothing manufacturers to come up with lighter-weight FRC. It has also created a new service industry providing “cooling trailers” to allow rig hands a place to get out of the heat and cool down.
So what are the latest developments for oil industry workers in “beating the heat” in the Permian Basin? Some steps that workers can take to avoid heat-related injuries are just common sense, according to Lenard Garrett, general manager of Lone Star USA Safety and Training in Midland. He said he offers a session on heat stress during the safety training he provides industry personnel.
“We talk about heat stress—what are the signs and what to do to avoid it,” he offered.
Signs of heat stress, Garrett said, include sweating profusely, nausea, dizziness, and even fainting. Take that stress one step farther and one can suffer a heat stroke.
“If you are having a heat stroke, you will stop sweating and your body temperature goes up dramatically,” he pointed out. “It can even cause death. There have been cases in sports where it is an issue, where teen-age boys get hot and don’t pay attention and suffer a heat stroke.”
When heat is an issue, Garrett encourages workers to take more frequent, smaller breaks and drink lots of water and Gatorade.
“Avoid Cokes, alcohol, and tea, anything caffeinated or with sugar in it,” he emphasized. “It is important to keep hydrated. Also avoid eating a heavy, greasy lunch. Your body only has so much blood. When you sweat, it cools your body off. If you eat a big meal, it pulls the blood to digest the meal.”
Garrett said it is important, too, to watch your fellow employees during the hot summer days.
“If you see him act strange, get him in the shade and take a break,” he continued. “If it is heat stress, you want to cool him off slowly. If it is a heat stroke, you have to cool him off fast and get him to a hospital right away.”
Flame retardant clothing
In March 2010, OSHA issued a memo requiring those working in the exploration of oil and gas to wear flame retardant clothing. Tom Kiddle is director of industrial sales for Carhartt, a Dearborn, Mich.-based company that is a leading provider of rugged, durable apparel for working men and women. Although OSHA did not specify FRC standards in its 2010 memo and an appellate court in North Dakota later ruled against OSHA, Kiddle said it had already become standard for companies to require flame retardant clothing.
Most companies are making FRC clothing to meet the NFPA 2112 standard, which, according to Kiddle, is a voluntary standard for workers in the oil and gas industry from the National Fire Protection Association.
With workers now being required to wear flame retardant clothing that tends to be heavier and hotter, there arose demands for lighter-weight clothing. Companies like Carhartt are working to meet those demands.
“Lighter weight is the Holy Grail of our industry,” Kiddle said, adding, “and still meet the standards.”
To try to meet that demand for lighter-weight FRC, Carhartt has just launched a new line of products it calls FR Force, which includes 100 percent cotton knit T-shirts that are not only lighter weight but also meet the NFPA 2112 flame retardant standard.
“A knit shirt is more comfortable than a seven-ounce woven shirt,” said Kiddle, noting the FR Force line includes moisture wicking, which is the same technology found in non-FR performance apparel. He said it also fights odor.
Kiddle said Carhartt’s FR Force line includes long sleeve and short sleeve T-shirts with crew and Henley neck styles, as well as a Polo shirt. He claimed the FRC T-shirts from Carhartt, which have proven tremendously popular, are now six ounces compared to woven FRC shirts that weigh seven ounces.
“We also offer two other products that are even lighter weight,” Kiddle added. “They are not 2112-approved, but they can wear the T-shirt, which is about an ounce lighter, under the FRC coveralls that give them protection.”
Kiddle said his company spent time with end users in the field to understand what they wanted from flame retardant clothing.
Carhartt, a family-owned business now being run by the fourth generation of the Carhartt family, will celebrate its 125th anniversary next year. Kiddle said Carhartt has been making flame retardant clothing since the late 1990s.
TECGEN Select
Invista, headquartered in Wichita, Kan., recently purchased TECGEN Protective Apparel business and is manufacturing its line of flame resistant clothing, which uses a patented bi-regional fiber that offers unique heat protection capabilities and meets NFPA 2112 standards, according to Ashley Pope, TECGEN Select national sales director for Invista.
TECGEN first began producing its lightweight FRC line in 2010, about the same time that OSHA issued its memo.
“We heard for years that flame resistant clothing was uncomfortable,” Pope claimed. “We offer the lightest weight certified clothing. Not only is it light weight, it breathes and it wicks moisture from the skin. TECGEN Select balances weight, moisture management, and the ability to breathe. It is easier to comply with safety policies when you have the most comfortable product that meets the compliance standard. You used to go out to a job site and you would see coveralls being worn down to the waist and shirts unbuttoned. If they are comfortable, workers are more likely to wear the products without sacrificing protection. We have many retailers and distributors in the Permian Basin.”
Cooling Trailers
When OSHA issued its memo that companies need to give employees a 15-minute break every hour, it also opened the door for a new product, cooling trailers. Kraig Knight, owner of Remote Safety and Recovery Systems, LLC, in Granbury, said that policy, along with many of the nation’s biggest operators adopting a zero tolerance policy regarding workers wearing flame retardant clothing, greatly impacted the demand for cooling trailers.
He said RSRS offers three types of cooling trailers, including the traditional 16-foot trailer with a high-volume misting fan that provides shade and seating for 10. It also offers a Class 1 Division II explosion-proof cooling trailer that can be backed up onto the wellhead where the rig hands are working.
Having potable water for the [misting style] cooling trailers in drought-stricken West Texas is a challenge, according to Knight, so his company has developed the RSRS 365, a fully enclosed trailer with a commercial heat pump system that provides a regulated temperature, whether it provides air conditioning when the outside temperature is 105 or heat when the sleet is blowing sideways.
“It is a place to get out of wind and not have grit in your sandwich,” he added.
The third line of cooling trailers offered by RSRS includes cooling or heating in the front half and an eye wash station and an emergency shower in the back half to comply with OSHA requirements.
New Product
Knight is especially excited about a new product that his company is introducing this summer. It is called the Ram Air system and it went on the market in July.
“I would say that 99 percent of the cooling trailers out there are not built specifically for the oil and gas industry, to be on a caliche pad in West Texas or New Mexico,” he contended. “We have developed a desert-friendly fan that we are calling Ram Air.
“We are manufacturing a product that is an industrial grade crew cooling machine. It can be mounted in a trailer or on the drilling rig floor. The oil industry is going to love it.”
Extra Features
“Flame retardant clothing is hot,” agreed Tom Dowdy, director of sales and leasing for Safety Heat Reduction Systems in Madill, Okla. “If you are standing a rig in the hot sun drinking water, you can’t replenish fluids fast enough.”
So Dowdy said his company sells, rents, or leases cooling trailers to supply rig workers a place to cool off. He stated that his company offers a basic trailer on a 16-foot frame, although it provides many additional safety features.
“Other trailers have nothing on the flooring to keep you from slipping if water is spilled,” he stated. “We have a safety walking area between the benches. We also have a safety step and handles when you step into the trailer, which can also be used as a tailgate for the trailer. It has a 48-inch evaporative cooling fan that can move 17,600 cubic feet of air per minute. On a 105-degree day, it can get air out of the fan to 75 degrees and 80 to 83 degrees in the back of the trailer.”
Dowdy said Safety Heat Reduction Systems also builds a side drop-down shade cloth, rather than tin, that allows the sun through but doesn’t allow heat to penetrate. Workers can still look through the shade and see the well site in case something goes wrong.
He added that his company’s trailers have five stabilizer jacks and a 325-gallon water tank with gravity feed to the evaporative cooler.
“Our trailers are overbuilt,” Dowdy claimed, “but they have to travel rough roads to get to the well site. We want them to stand up.”
Safety Heat Reduction Systems offers other optional features, too, including a generator that takes the exhaust through the roof so workers don’t have to worry about carbon monoxide. Dowdy said it also offers a cool-down shower with a shower head and battery on the exterior of the trailer, as well as an eye wash station and a spare tire.
Besides the basic cooling trailer, Safety Heat Reduction Systems offers a 24-foot trailer that has three separate rooms, according to Dowdy. He said the front room has two refrigeration air conditioners with lockable controls. The middle section is an equipment room, and the back room is a shower room that contains a totally self-contained decontamination safety shower and an eye wash station that meets standards.
“We can give them 20 gallons-a-minute water flow for 25 minutes,” he explains. “We also hold the water in a containment trailer until an EPA [Environmental Protection Agency] removal crew comes to determine what to do with it.”
Dowdy added that his company builds cooling trailers as customers order them. He said a lot of rental companies buy their cooling trailers.
Whether it is cooling trailers or lighter-weight flame retardant clothing, both manufacturers and operators, as well as health and safety experts, are looking for ways to keep employees cool—and safe—in the hot West Texas summer.