Numbers don’t lie: an oil rig is one dangerous place to be

Today’s Houston Chronicle has a timely article about the safety record of oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico. The following is a summary of the report.

Since 2006 two people have been killed and 12 seriously injured from nine major rig fires. During that time there have been 509 recorded platform fires overall.

Since 2006 the Chronicle found 35 fatal accidents in local records and news reports. According to an attorney cited in the article, accidents on Gulf platforms are underreported.

“There is a big difference between their actual incident/injury rate and their self-reported (rate),” this attorney said. “Often (company officials) deny an injury no matter what the doctors say.”

Transocean Ltd, the Houston-based owner of the Deepwater Horizon platform rocked by Tuesday night’s explosion, does not go unscathed in the Chronicle report.

In 2008 and 2009, 19 fires were reported aboard Transocean rigs with four of those fires resulting in workers seriously injured enough to be medivacced. The article states that “dozens” of cases have been filed against Transocean and interrelated companies in recent years. Many of those cases resulted in undisclosed settlements.

The federal Minerals Management Service says that there have been 69 deaths, 1,349 injuries and 858 fires and explosion in the Gulf since 2001.

Source: Houston Chronicle