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Cost-Cutting During Downturn Raises Safety Concerns For Workers
Many companies resort to cost-cutting during a downturn to reign in unnecessary expenses. The fear is that many oil and gas companies tend to become lax when it comes to maintaining safety precautions at oil rigs. This could have serious consequences, raising safety concerns for oil rig workers. The recent incident of an oil well explosion at Texas’s Permian Basin highlights the need for stringent rules to ensure worker safety.
As reported in a recent news article:
“A deadly oil well explosion in Texas’s Permian Basin this week offers a cautionary note of the industry’s challenges as companies cut costs during a market downturn. Even as deaths in the industry have climbed much less than the breakneck pace of hiring for the U.S. shale boom, the three fatalities in Upton County on Tuesday are a reminder of the many risks facing workers.”
New Rules In Offshore Drilling For Better Worker Safety Likely
In the light of the Deepwater Gulf rig explosion, the U.S. government is likely to introduce new rules for improved safety at offshore locations. The rules will call for better quality standards and safety checks for blowout preventers which failed to work in BP’s Deepwater Gulf rig.
Amy Harder and Russell Gold said in a recent article:
“The Interior Department draft rule, which has long been expected by the industry, would impose tougher standards on that blowout preventers, which are designed to seal off oil wells in emergencies. This equipment failed in the April 2010 disaster, which helped lead to the explosion on the BP (BP) rig in the Gulf of Mexico.”
The new rules will help oil and gas companies to ensure safer working conditions for workers, while protecting the environment from the harmful effects of oil spills.