Occupational Accidents in the Oil and Gas Industry

Despite significant efforts to improve safety, occupational accidents continue to occur at an unacceptable rate. Most research attempts to convince stakeholders that the problem can be solved by improvements in a particular area, such as protective equipment, corporate safety culture, or training. This work adopts the alternative approach that accident causation is holistic and also includes unconventional external influencing factors such as the price of oil and societal value placed on life. This book reviews approaches to accident causation and modelling taken by researchers over the past half century. An analysis of current statistics is presented, which demonstrates significant differences in accident rates between regions and companies, and when performing different activities. Based on the resulting conclusion that accidents are influenced by elements at direct, corporate, and external levels, a holistic model has been developed which predicts accident rates. The present work was based on the oil and gas industry, but the concepts are easily transferred to others. The book will be useful to safety professionals in all industries. Dr. Daryl Attwood has earned B Eng (Mechanical), M Eng (Iceberg Motion), and PhD (Safety Engineering) degrees from Memorial University of Newfoundland. He has lectured at the university level in Thermodynamics and Linear Algebra. He currently works in the asset integrity assurance discipline in the oil and gas industry.