By Heather Douglas
“In the United States between 2005 and 2015, there were 85 deaths due to fires or explosions at oil and gas wellsites, including 27 ignited by mobile engines or auxiliary motors.” United States Department of Labor, Occupational Health & Safety Administration (OHSA), June 2017.
This summer, the Americans issued a safety alert to warn drillers, servicing personnel, and production operators how to prevent fires and explosions caused by ignition of gases from motorized equipment and idling vehicles. All were located too close to a wellhead, flowback tank, or production tank. Prudent Canadian executives — producers as well as service and supply organizations – would be wise to ensure these words of wisdom are heeded at their job sites.
“When flammable vapours are released, non-intrinsically safe engines and motors can ignite the vapours and cause explosions with catastrophic consequences,” OHSA warns and recommends the workers “conduct a fire risk assessment to ensure safe positioning of all motorized equipment during drilling and completions, servicing, and production operations to prevent fires and explosions.”
According to OHSA, there are seven steps which should be followed to conduct a fire risk assessment:
• “Train workers to know that when an engine ‘over revs’ or starts ‘running away,’ it’s in a gas or vapour cloud;
• Identify potential sources for release of flammable gases or vapours (wellbore, flowback tanks, frac tanks, production tanks);
• Evaluate the location of a potential source of release as they relate to on-site ignitions sources and consider changing weather conditions (wind, temperatures, etc.);
• Establish acceptable areas, boundaries, and entry routes for vehicles and motorized equipment, including contractors’ equipment;
• Ensure the location of all vehicles/motorized equipment is within the established areas, boundaries, and entry routes;
• Develop a job hazard analysis (JHA) that includes fire risk hazards; and
• Review the JHA, fire prevention plans, and emergency evacuation procedures at daily shift meetings.”
OSHA has several additional guidelines if the equipment has installed engineering controls and other preventative safeguards:
• “Monitor (personal and/or fixed) for flammable gases, vapours (e.g. lower explosive limits), and oxygen;
• Consider installing shutdown systems (positive air shut-off for diesel or ignition kill for gasoline), intake flame arrestor, exhaust system spark arrest, or other appropriate protective systems for mobile engines;
• Use a safe work permit system or other administrative control method that to control vehicle/ motorized equipment access in areas that could contain flammable vapours and gases;
• Train workers on hazards of internal combustion engines as ignition sources; and
• Shut down running/idling non-essential equipment and vehicles.”
When a worker or crew comes onto a wellsite, that person or group need to know and understand several things: what the producer’s safe work practices and procedures are, as well as his or her own company’s HSE (health, safety and environment) code; have previously attended hazard communication training to know the hazards of the equipment on-site; be sure to remove any potential ignition sources (e.g. static, cell phones, open flames, cigarettes, sparks from tools or metal objects, etc.), wear PPE (personal protective equipment), personal gas detection devices, and heed all alarms. If gases unexpectedly ignite, evacuate the area immediately.
Most accidents and injuries happen when a person is not paying attention to what they are doing. No one – whether producer or service company — wants a worker to suffer third-degree burns or become the subject of a fatality inquiry.
#Oil #OilandGas #Safety #HSE #OHSA #TheRoughneck #Canada #Alberta
