Saturday, December 6, 2014

UPDATE: WEST DELTA 32 EXPLOSION AND FIRE: ANOTHER CONFIRMED DEAD. 3 TOTAL DEAD WORKERS






UPDate: West Delta 32 EXPLOSION AND Fire: Another Confirmed Dead.  3 TOTAL DEAD WORKERS

Posted on Nov 30, 2012 1:14pm EST
The body of the missing Filipino worker, who disappeared after the November 16 explosion on the West Delta 32 offshore oil platform, has been recovered. This brings the accident's death toll up to three.
The body has been identified as 28-year-old Jerome Malagapo. Dental records from the Philippines were used to help ID the man. The body was discovered by workers on a supply ship, 2.5 miles off the coast of Grand Isle, Louisiana.
In the wake of the accident, three workers remain hospitalized, two of which are in critical condition. This accident has been deemed the deadliest since the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion which killed 11 and resulted in the worst offshore oil spill in the history of the United States.
The West Delta 32 fire has been a hard hit on the Philippine Embassy and country of Philippines as nine of the 22 workers on board the platform were Filipino. The workers were employed by Grand Isle Shipyard Inc. to refurbish the Black Elk platform.
Federal authorities continue to investigate the cause of the accident in order to determine fault but the Philippine Embassy insists that the injured/deceased Filipino workers were not the ones at fault.
The first fatality discovered was Ellroy Corporal, whose body was found shortly after the accident. The second fatality was Avelino L. Tajonera who died after sustaining serious burn injuries. Tajonera was one of the two workers initially listed in critical condition.
Following the death of Tajonera, Black Elk issued the following statement, "We continue to work in close cooperation with government officials to understand exactly what happened in this incident." The body of Malagapo was recovered three days after Tajonera passed away.
The Philippines ambassador said, "We are deeply saddened to learn that we lost our kababayan, Jerome Malagapo… We console ourselves with the thought that Jerome has been found and will be reunited with his loved ones."
The victims of the blast were among an estimated 162 fitters, scaffolders, riggers and welders that were hired in the Philippines to work on offshore platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. The survivors of the fire arrived back in the Philippines last week. Philippine diplomats are coordinating with employer D&R Resources, the hospitals and Grand Isle Shipyard Inc. to provide these survivors with the care they need.

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NO, LA, USA. Worker killed, 3 others injured in Gulf of Mexico oil platform blast
NEW ORLEANS -- One person was killed and three others hurt in an explosion Thursday on an offshore oil and gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico.
A spokeswoman for Houston-based Fieldwood Energy said the explosion happened just before 3 p.m. at the West Delta 105 "E" facility, located about 12 miles off Louisiana's coast.
"One employee of a contractor was fatally injured and a second contractor employee was seriously injured," Shannon Savoy said in a statement. "We have accounted for all other personnel who were working at the facility."
The conditions of the other two people who were hurt was not immediately known.

Location is seen of oil platform explosion off Louisiana on November 20, 2014
WWL-TV 
Savoy called the explosion an "isolated incident that has been fully contained. The facility was not damaged and there was no pollution that resulted from the incident."
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) said in a statement that the platform was not in production at the time of the explosion. 
Bureau spokeswoman Chauntra Rideaux said the agency was working with the U.S. Coast Guard on the response and would be investigati. 
The explosion occurred about two months after a contractor was killed and two others hurt during maintenance work in September on a Chevron natural gas pipeline, also off the Louisiana coast. The cause of that incident remains under investigation.
NEW ORLEANS — The U.S. Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement responded Thursday to an explosion at a drilling platform in the Gulf of Mexico, approximately 12 miles off the coast of New Orleans, that killed one person and injured three others, said Chauntra Rideaux, a spokeswoman for the bureau. 
The offshore oil and gas operator, Fieldwood Energy, reported the explosion on its Echo Platform just before 3 p.m. Thursday, Rideaux said in a news release sent out about 8 p.m. 
The bureau is a part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Fieldwood Energy said one person was killed and three others were being treated at an onshore medical facility as a result of the explosion, she said.
The person killed and one of the people injured were private contractors, company spokeswoman Shannon Savoy said in an email statement.
“We have accounted for all other personnel who were working at the facility. This was an isolated incident that has been fully contained,” she said.
The Echo Platform was not in production at the time of the incident, she said. The facility’s damage was limited to the explosion area and there was no pollution reported, she said.
The U.S. Coast Guard provided a fly-over of the platform to assess damage, but did not provide further assistance, an agency spokesman said Thursday night. 
The bureau is coordinating the response with the U.S. Coast Guard, and the bureau will investigate the incident, Rideaux said. 
Fieldwood is a Houston-based portfolio company of Riverstone Holdings LLC, according to the company website.
It was founded in December 2012 and has amassed the largest drilling asset base in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the website. Fieldwood mainly does shallow-water drilling.
Matt McCarroll, the company’s president and CEO, is an LSU graduate and Baton Rouge native, according to the Fieldwood website. 
Fieldwood is working with emergency responders, Savoy said in the statement.
“In the interim, our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the deceased and injured contractor employees,” she said.

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Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) Responds to Explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that Killed 1 Worker and Injured 3 Others
11/20/2014
NEW ORLEANS- The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) is responding to an explosion at West Delta 105 in the Gulf of Mexico, approximately 12 miles off the coast of New Orleans. The offshore oil and gas operator, Fieldwood Energy, reported the explosion on its Echo Platform just before 3pm this afternoon.
The operator has reported that there is one fatality and three others being treated at an onshore medical facility as a result of the incident. The Echo Platform was not in production at the time of the incident. The facility damage was limited to the explosion area and there was no pollution reported.
BSEE is coordinating with the U.S. Coast Guard during the response. BSEE will investigate the incident. More information will be provided as it becomes available.
Media Inquiries: Chauntra Rideaux, 504-731-7847
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Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement Responding to Explosion in Gulf of Mexico
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) is responding to an explosion at West Delta 105 in the Gulf of Mexico, approximately 12 miles off the coast of New Orleans. The offshore oil and gas operator, Fieldwood Energy, reported the explosion on its Echo Platform just before 3pm this afternoon.
The operator has reported that there is one fatality and three others being treated at an onshore medical facility as a result of the incident. The Echo Platform was not in production at the time of the incident. The facility damage was limited to the explosion area and there was no pollution reported.

BSEE is coordinating with the U.S. Coast Guard during the response. BSEE will investigate the incident. More information will be provided as it becomes available.

LOUISIANA Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) Responds to Explosion in the Gulf of Mexico that Killed 1 Worker and Injured 3 Others




11/20/2014
NEW ORLEANS- The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) is responding to an explosion at West Delta 105 in the Gulf of Mexico, approximately 12 miles off the coast of New Orleans. The offshore oil and gas operator, Fieldwood Energy, reported the explosion on its Echo Platform just before 3pm this afternoon.
The operator has reported that there is one fatality and three others being treated at an onshore medical facility as a result of the incident. The Echo Platform was not in production at the time of the incident. The facility damage was limited to the explosion area and there was no pollution reported.
BSEE is coordinating with the U.S. Coast Guard during the response. BSEE will investigate the incident. More information will be provided as it becomes available.
A team of BSEE engineers, inspectors and investigators are currently on the facility conducting an incident investigation. Through the course of the investigation, the BSEE investigation team will interview witnesses and analyze evidence to determine the cause of the explosion.
Media Inquiries: Chauntra Rideaux, 504-731-7847

The offshore oil and gas operator, Fieldwood Energy, reported the explosion on its Echo Platform just before 3 p.m. Thursday, Rideaux said in a news release sent out about 8 p.m. 
The bureau is a part of the U.S. Department of the Interior.
Fieldwood Energy said one person was killed and three others were being treated at an onshore medical facility as a result of the explosion, she said.
The person killed and one of the people injured were private contractors, company spokeswoman Shannon Savoy said in an email statement.
“We have accounted for all other personnel who were working at the facility. This was an isolated incident that has been fully contained,” she said.
The Echo Platform was not in production at the time of the incident, she said. The facility’s damage was limited to the explosion area and there was no pollution reported, she said.
The U.S. Coast Guard provided a fly-over of the platform to assess damage, but did not provide further assistance, an agency spokesman said Thursday night.
The bureau is coordinating the response with the U.S. Coast Guard, and the bureau will investigate the incident, Rideaux said. 
Fieldwood is a Houston-based portfolio company of Riverstone Holdings LLC, according to the company website.
It was founded in December 2012 and has amassed the largest drilling asset base in the Gulf of Mexico, according to the website. Fieldwood mainly does shallow-water drilling.
Matt McCarroll, the company’s president and CEO, is an LSU graduate and Baton Rouge native, according to the Fieldwood website. 
Fieldwood is working with emergency responders, Savoy said in the statement.
“In the interim, our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the deceased and injured contractor employees,” she said.

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Fieldwood Energy LLC Press Release re West Delta 105 "E" Deadly Incident that Killed a Worker and Injured 3--November 21, 2014; 10:00 a.m. central

At Fieldwood Energy, our top priority is the safety of our employees and contractors. We regret that yesterday afternoon there was an incident at our West Delta 105 "E" platform that occurred when employees of Turnkey Cleaning Services were cleaning a heater treater, which is a piece of equipment that separates oil from water and other liquids. Turnkey Cleaning Services is a Louisiana based industrial cleaning service company that specializes in the cleaning of offshore facilities, including the cleaning of heater treaters.
During the cleaning process, one Turnkey employee was fatally injured and a second suffered visible injuries. The Turnkey employee who suffered visible injuries was immediately flown to West Jefferson Hospital for evaluation and treatment. Two other individuals who were on the platform complained of ringing in their ears, so they also were flown to the same hospital to be evaluated. All three of these individuals have been evaluated and released from the hospital. All other personnel on the platform have been accounted for and are safe.
The West Delta 105 "E" platform has not been producing oil or gas for over a week, as the facility was undergoing routine maintenance operations when the incident occurred. There were no wells that were producing at the time of the incident. The explosion that was mentioned in the initial reports was not a well explosion or well blowout. Instead, it was an isolated pressure event that occurred inside the heater treater and did not result in a fire on the platform. This incident was not related to a drilling operation but, instead, occurred during maintenance operations at the platform. There was no oil spill or pollution that resulted from this incident and it was contained immediately after it occurred with no damage to the environment, the platform, or the platform�s wells.
We do not have additional details at this point. We are working hand in hand with BSEE, the Coast Guard, and Turnkey Cleaning Services to investigate this incident fully. We will post additional information on our company website as we learn more details. Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the family of the deceased Turnkey Cleaning Services employee.


Exploration and Production
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Heated Separation Process
The operating conditions in the heater treater must be adequately monitored to ensure operational productivity and safety. If increases or decreases in temperature or pressure are reported, operators can take the appropriate steps to return the vessel to an optimal operating range. VEGA products help to verify the quality of the product output from the heater treater, as well as protect the safety of nearby workers.
VEGABAR 52, Pressure Monitoring
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detected before a failure happens, eliminating a potential
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increasing the operator’s insight into the process with just
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VEGASWING 61, High Level Switching
▪ Vibrating point switch provides high level detection of the
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 requirements


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Worker in deadly Gulf blast was cleaning equipment


Posted: Friday, November 21, 2014 2:46 pm | Updated: 5:02 pm, Fri Nov 21, 2014.
Associated Press |
NEW ORLEANS (AP) — A worker killed in an offshore explosion was cleaning a piece of equipment during routine maintenance at its oil-and-gas platform in the Gulf of Mexico, the company that runs the platform said Friday.
Houston-based Fieldwood Energy LLC said another worker suffered "visible injury" and two others reported ringing in their ears after the explosion, which was reported just before 3 p.m. Thursday. The company said the three injured workers have been released from the hospital.
Fieldwood said the worker who was killed Thursday was cleaning a piece of equipment that separates oil from water liquids when an "isolated pressure event" occurred. The company said the victim and the other worker with visible injuries were employed by Turnkey Cleaning Services, a Louisiana company specializing in cleaning offshore facilities.
Turnkey declined to provide details about the incident and its workers. Fieldwood did not disclose the names of the workers.
The explosion happened on the Echo Platform, about 12 miles offshore near the mouth of the Mississippi River.
Federal regulators were on the platform Friday to investigate, said Chauntra Rideaux, a spokeswoman with the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement.
Fieldwood said the platform had not been producing oil or gas for over a week. The company added that the incident did not involve a well explosion or blowout but rather a piece of equipment called a heater treater. The company said the incident did not cause a fire on the platform nor any pollution.
"Our thoughts and prayers continue to be with the family of the deceased Turnkey Cleaning Services employee," Fieldwood said in a statement.
The explosion occurred about two months after a contractor was killed and two others hurt during maintenance work in September on a Chevron natural gas pipeline, also off the Louisiana coast. The cause remains under investigation.

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Posted on by Jennifer A. Dlouhy in Accidents, featured
(Dado Galdieri/Bloomberg)
WASHINGTON — The explosion at an offshore oil platform that killed one worker and injured three others Thursday happened during maintenance work at the site, according to new details disclosed Friday.
Although it is not clear precisely what triggered the blast at the platform 12 miles from the Louisiana coast, Houston-based Fieldwood Energy said contractors with Turnkey Cleaning Services were cleaning a heater treater at the time of the incident. Heater treaters are designed to separate oil from water and other materials.
Oil and gas was not flowing at the time, with production having been halted more than a week ago to allow for the maintenance work.
Fieldwood Energy stressed that the incident was “an isolated pressure event that occurred inside the heater treater and did not result in a fire on the platform.”
“There was no oil spill or pollution that resulted from this incident and it was contained immediately after it occurred with no damage to the environment, the platform or the platform’s wells,” the company added.
The fatal explosion came nearly six months after federal drilling regulators warned that the facility had failed to maintain all equipment in a safe condition so as to ensure the protection of the lease and associated facilities.
The Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement could not immediately say Friday what triggered that June 3 warning, though it could have been tied to a single piece of equipment among hundreds of devices at the site. Notably, the agency stopped short of ordering the facility or a component shut in when it issued that noncompliance warning in June or during the May 22 inspection that prompted the citation.
A team of engineers, inspectors and investigators with the safety bureau flew to the site Friday to probe what happened. Fieldwood also said it was working with the safety bureau, Coast Guard and Turnkey Cleaning Services to fully investigate the incident.
The identity of the deceased Turnkey worker has not been disclosed. According to Fieldwood, three other workers — including one with visible injuries and two with ringing ears — were treated at West Jefferson Hospital and released.
Unlike other recent offshore accidents, the injured workers were not Filipino, according to the Philippine Embassy.
The incident, coming roughly two months after a contractor was killed during maintenance work at an offshore natural gas pipeline, illustrates anew the dangers posed to the massive workforce that cleans and maintains oil and gas facilities in the Gulf of Mexico.
Anne Rolfes, founding director of the environmental group Louisiana Bucket Brigade, said the industry has “an accident problem” that puts workers in harm’s way, including some that clean and maintain offshore oil facilities.
“That is not a glamorous job,” she said. “These people are at the lowest rung you can get in the industry and they are the ones who are bearing the risk.”
But Plaquemines Parish President Billy Nungesser warned against a rush to regulate in response to the incident. He has spoken out against a Louisiana levee board’s lawsuit against 97 oil and gas companies that blames them for coastal wetland erosion.
“Any incident is horrible, and whenever we have one, we want to tighten the screws,” he said. But, he argued, “the oil industry does a great job in training their personnel.”
“It’s a relatively safe place to work, when you look at the amount of men and platforms and transportation back and forth — and you look at the minimal accidents they do have, even though they’re magnified when they happen,” he added.
Turnkey is a Louisiana-based industrial cleaning service company that focuses on facilities in the Gulf of Mexico. The company, which declined to say more about the incident Friday, notes on its website that it has had zero accidents or lost time incidents in the past five years.
Fieldwood’s facility is located in about 220 feet of water in the West Delta area of the Gulf of Mexico, in block 105. Houston-based Apache Corp., drilled three wells there in 2001, according to federal government records.
Federal officials have cited the facility for not complying with offshore oil regulations on 38 separate occasions dating back to 1997, though many — 18 — were during drilling activity in 2001. Four citations were issued in 2011, one in 2012 and one this June. All of them came before Fieldwood became the facility’s operator in July.
A portfolio company of the New York private equity firm Riverstone Holdings, Fieldwood officially became a qualified offshore operator a year earlier, in July 2013.
The company has been aggressively building up a Gulf of Mexico portfolio, with a $3.75 billion purchase of Apache Corp. assets on the continental shelf in 2013 and a $750 million deal for SandRidge Energy’s Gulf Coast and Gulf of Mexico unit earlier this year.
Other Fieldwood Energy operations in the Gulf have had minor injuries this year.
For instance, one injury was reported at a Fieldwood facility in July, when Hercules Offshore was the contractor on site. According to a safety bureau accident investigation report, a worker suffered a broken finger while using an electronic jack to maneuver a pallet of chemicals and a switch became stuck in the reverse position.
In a separate June incident documented by the safety bureau, a contractor at another Fieldwood Energy facility was injured when he missed a step on a stairway from the heliport and a 50-pound bag landed on his hip, breaking it.

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Posted on by Jennifer A. Dlouhy in Premium

WASHINGTON — The death of a welder who fell from an offshore platform last week highlights the dangers facing the large immigrant and contractor workforce employed to maintain and decommission decades-old oil and gas facilities in the Gulf of Mexico.
Four Filipino workers have died in the past year during welding and other physical work on shallow Gulf facilities, prompting concern from Manila to Washington, D.C.
“In light of these events, the Philippine Embassy would like to express its deep concern over the safety of Filipinos working in offshore facilities in the United States,” Ambassador Jose Cusia Jr. said in a statement.
Hundreds of workers from the island nation toil in U.S. waters as welders, fabricators and riggers, mostly for contractors such as Galliano, La.-based Grand Isle Shipyard and Houma, La.-based Offshore Specialty Fabricators, the firm involved in the most recent incident.
Federal investigators are looking into what caused 38-year-old Peter Jorge E. Voces to plunge to his death from an Energy Resource Technology oil and gas platform about 75 miles southeast of Lake Charles.
A 76-member derrick barge crew from Offshore Specialty Fabricators was dismantling the inactive structure at the time of the accident, around 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 27, said David Blackmon, an Energy Resource Technology spokesman.
Voces was believed to be working on an 80-foot-by-16-foot 300-barrel tank when it fell off the platform, carrying the welder with it. His body was recovered two days later.
Officials with Offshore Specialty Fabricators did not return a request for comment but a statement on its website said the firm was deeply saddened by Voces’ death and would cooperate with U.S. and Philippine officials in any investigations.
Energy Resource Technology, which is a subsidiary of Houston-based oil and gas firm Talos Energy, also pledged cooperation.
“The safety of people is always our highest priority, and we will be focused on the safety of our employees and our contractors throughout the investigation,” the company said in a statement.
Black Elk platform explosion
Three other Filipino workers died roughly a year ago during maintenance work on another Gulf platform, this one about 18 miles off the Louisiana coast. Federal investigators are set to release a report soon on what caused an explosion on that facility owned by Houston-based Black Elk Energy. A report commissioned by the firm pinned blame on workers for Grand Isle Shipyard who were cutting through a pipe that had not been fully isolated and cleared of flammable vapors.
A 2011 lawsuit against Grand Isle and recruiting companies alleges that they lured foreign workers with promises of $16.26 in hourly wages and a shot at permanent U.S. visas but then forced the Filipinos to pay for housing in alleged slave-like conditions, relinquish their bunks to American workers and accept as little as $5.50 per hour. Grand Isle has rejected the claims.
Other lawsuits have been brought against Black Elk Energy and Grand Isle Shipyard by victims of the November 2012 blast, the most recent filed against Black Elk by a burned Filipino pipe fitter who says workers were inadequately supervised and not outfitted with adequate safety gear.
Shady employment practices
The Filipino workers have come to the Gulf under a variety of non-immigrant visas. In Grand Isle’s case, workers say in court documents they were in the United States on a specialized E-2 or “treaty investor” visa, limited to employees of people in trade partner nations who are investing substantial money in U.S. businesses.
Terry Valen, the San Francisco-based president of the National Alliance for Filipino Concerns, said the offshore deaths shed light on shady employment practices and deplorable conditions.
“To hear of another death — a worker falling off a platform — we see the protections are not there,” he said. “It’s not being ensured by the Philippine government for its citizens and the U.S. government in how its regulating. It’s an outrage for the Filipino community.”
Roughly one in 10 Filipinos works abroad, in nations ringing the globe, but Valen notes that the accidents in the Gulf are not what you’d expect from “the United States, the most advanced country.”
Contractors under scrutiny
The recent deaths also are drawing fresh scrutiny to the web of contractors that work for energy companies in the Gulf.
Traditionally, federal drilling regulators focused solely on companies holding offshore oil and gas leases, putting the onus on them to make sure contractors follow regulations. But under a change in 2011, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement began policing contractors too, occasionally penalizing them as well as operators for running afoul of requirements.
Bureau director Brian Salerno said that a greater focus on contractors may be needed.
“The connections between operators and contractors can probably be tightened up from a safety perspective,” he said, during one of his first interviews since taking over the agency two months ago. “I think the relationships are kind of loose, and I think that represents a safety vulnerability.”
Salerno noted that contractor activity was a thread that appeared to run through recent accidents in the Gulf — both the two fatal incidents and others involving offshore wells.
“In some of the instances we’ve seen offshore, that appears to be a factor,” Salerno said.


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Posted on by Emily Pickrell in Accidents, Gulf oil spill, Offshore



Chevron employees board a helicopter on the Tahiti production platform in the Gulf of Mexico, a 90 minute ride from New Orleans. (Simone Sebastian/Houston Chronicle)
Death by helicopter is the leading cause of industrial accidents for oil and gas workers, according to a Center for Disease Control report issued Friday.
While the fiery deaths of the 11 workers killed in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon has been a stark reminder of the dangers of offshore drilling, the transportation required to reach offshore platforms is statistically a much greater danger.
Helicopter accidents accounted for 49 of 128 fatalities from 2003-2010, making up 75 percent of all transportation related deaths for oil and gas workers.


The fatality rate for oil and gas workers onshore and offshore is seven times higher than that for all U.S. workers, with 27.1 versus 3.8 deaths per 100,000 workers.
Transportation events, which includes all ‘transportation and material moving’ activities, were the leading cause of energy industry worker deaths, making up 51 percent of the total.
Seventeen helicopter events were responsible for these deaths, all of which took place in Gulf of Mexico offshore operations, the report said. Eleven of these accidents were responsible for the fatalities, with five events involving a mechanical failure and bad weather contributing to three accidents. In five of the accidents, nine fatalities involved workers who survived the accident but later drowned.
In five events, a total of nine fatalities involved occupants who survived the initial impact but later drowned. All of the helicopter events occurred in Gulf of Mexico offshore operations.

The study also noted that while the number of active offshore drilling rigs decreased by 63 percent from 2003 to 2010, the number of annual fatalities during offshore operations remained stable, indicating that the ratio of accidents to worker is actually increasing.
“To reduce fatalities in offshore oil and gas operations, employers should ensure that the most stringent applicable transportation safety guidelines are followed,” advised the Center for Disease Control in the report.
The Centers report used government data from the Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries for the period 2003–2010 for its findings.
Posted on by Associated Press in Accidents, Natural gas

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NEW ORLEANS — A contractor was killed and two others were injured Saturday during maintenance on a Chevron natural gas pipeline off the Louisiana coast, authorities said.
The contractor, whose name was not immediately released, was among four maintenance workers on the platform when the accident occurred about 11:10 a.m. Saturday, said Gareth Johnstone, a spokesman for Chevron Pipe Line Co. He said the two other workers were taken to a hospital for what are expected to be minor injuries.
A helicopter brought two people from offshore to meet an ambulance, but both declined to take the ambulance to a hospital after being checked by medics, said Randall Ansley, shift supervisor for Acadian Ambulance.
Johnstone said he did not know what caused the death and injuries.
The platform is part of a natural gas gathering system and the pipeline was shut-in after the accident, Johnstone said.
He said the cause of the accident was being investigated.
Johnstone said a small amount of natural gas condensate was released into the water, but dissipated. Natural gas is being released at the platform to relieve pressure on the line owned by Chevron Midstream Pipeline LLC. Johnstone said containment crews were headed to the platform.
He said he did not know whether the initial release of gas was under water or at the pipeline level.
Col. Mike Edmonson, superintendent of Louisiana State Police, said Chevron reported the accident to the state about 2 p.m. Saturday.