Drilling contractor in Quinton explosion had OSHA violations in past
By Samuel Hardiman Tulsa World
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has launched an investigation into what caused a drilling rig explosion Monday that left five dead in Pittsburg County.
Patterson-UTI Energy, the drilling firm working the rig, has had a handful of OSHA inspection violations in Oklahoma over the past 10 years. The federal agency has conducted 12 inspections of Patterson-UTI rigs and facilities in Oklahoma over the past decade and found four separate violations, according to an OSHA inspection database. However, the company isn’t among the most frequent drilling company violators in Oklahoma during that time, records show.
OSHA confirmed the investigation Tuesday, but declined to comment further.
The agency is responsible for enforcing laws and regulations governing workplace safety and health. It conducts inspections of workplaces involved in oil and gas drilling and servicing operations as it does with other industries.
“The people of Patterson-UTI are our primary focus, and keeping them safe at the well site is always our primary focus. ... We’ve operated across North America for a long time ... and for the past few years we’ve been one of the safest companies in the industry,” said Patterson-UTI President and CEO Andy Hendricks at a news conference.
In a later interview with the Tulsa World, Hendricks cited an industry benchmark for safety and said his firm exceeds that.
“For instance, the International Association of Drilling Contractors on a quarterly basis publishes the organization’s overall safety performance, and for years now … our incident reporting rate has been lower than the industry average,” Hendricks said. “Outside of the tragic event this week ... we were making good progress.”
Hendricks said the rig had gone to work for Red Mountain Energy, the operator of the site, in December.
A search of records over the past 10 years shows no instance of the site being inspected. Patterson-UTI has 30 rigs operating in Oklahoma, according to the Houston-based company’s website.
“We won’t speculate on the investigation at this point, but we will work with OSHA ... to begin the investigation because we want to learn from this,” Hendricks said at the news conference. He said that the national Chemical Safety Board, which often investigates similar incidents, had contacted the company.
“We will work with them,” Hendricks said. He said no regulator had contacted the company about suspending other operations.
A CSB spokeswoman said in an email, “The CSB is sending two investigators to gather additional information in order to determine if the CSB will be pursuing a full investigation.”
The Oklahoma Corporation Commission investigation report said authorities learned at 8:45 a.m. Monday that the well was on fire from an uncontrolled gas release.
The report recommends that the operator should kill the well with heavy drilling mud, make sure it is stabilized with mud and cement plugs, and take soil samples by Feb. 23.
Fatalities among oil and gas extraction workers in Oklahoma are relatively rare. Seven workers in the industry died between 2011 and 2016, according to a Bureau of Labor Statistics database.
One worker was killed in Boley in 2017. Someone was injured in a separate Pittsburg County explosion in 2017, according to media reports.
A workplace safety expert with the National Council for Occupational Safety and Health, Peter Dooley, said work in the oilfield is inherently dangerous.
“The thing that investigators need to be really looking is if there any sort of foreshadowing events ... that indicated possible problems and how they were responded to,” he said. “That’s going to be the most informative information.”
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A fiery explosion at an Oklahoma drilling rig Monday left five people missing, including three employees of the rig's owner, Patterson-UTI Energy of Houston.
The explosion cut through the Patterson-UTI rig just before 9 a.m. Monday, according to Oklahoma authorities, and the Houston driller confirmed that three of its workers were among the missing at the Pittsburg County natural gas well site. Patterson-UTI said the fire's cause was still unknown.
"At this moment, no one knows with certainty what happened, and it would be unwise to speculate," Andy Hendricks, Patterson-UTI's chief executive, said in a statement. "Well control experts and emergency responders are on-site, and we will conduct a thorough investigation when the incident is fully contained. "
Hendricks, who was traveling to Oklahoma, said the company was providing support to the families of the missing, whose names have not been released.
"There is nothing more important to us than the safety of our employees and others we partner with in the field," Hendricks said. "Tonight, our thoughts and prayers go out to all those affected and their loved ones."
Aerial footage showed several fires were still burning by midday on the rig and much of the equipment had collapsed, the Associated Press reported.
"Pretty much everything that is on location is on fire," Pittsburg County Emergency Management Director Kevin Enloe said during an afternoon news conference.
Patterson-UTI has grown in recent years into one of the nation's largest onshore drilling and hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, companies. Patterson-UTI has about 25 drilling rigs active in Oklahoma, second only to Texas, where it has nearly 60 rigs in operation.
The incident occurred at the site of one of Patterson-UTI's more modern APEX 1500 rigs, described as a "light, safe and efficient rapid deployment rig." More than 20 people were working at the well site when the explosion occurred west of Quinton, about 100 miles southeast of Tulsa, authorities said.
Confirmation of any fatalities won't be possible until the fire is extinguished and investigators can get to the scene, said Amy Elliott, a spokeswoman for the Oklahoma medical examiner's office. Authorities said they are still searching the surrounding woods to see if anyone had fled into the area.
The drilling site was operated by Oklahoma City-based Red Mountain Operating, said Matt Skinner, a spokesman for the Oklahoma Corporation Commission, which regulates oil and gas operators in the state. Red Mountain did not immediately comment.
Skinner said the company has not had any incidents or complaints in the last five years.