As I have been writing and discussing in the last couple of posts, the explosion of oil and gas exploration and development in recent years due to innovations and advancement in technology have created higher demand for workers in the industry, and there has been an increase in supply of workers because of salaries being hiked up to some unreal levels.

Of course, there are very high risks involved in these jobs, so a certain level of hazard pay is included in these high salaries. But really, as oil and gas worksites have become more populated with workers, some of the safety regulations and guidelines that have been in place in the industry have had to be re-assessed. What might have worked for a site that only have five or 10 workers may now be problmatic if that site has 20 or 30 workers because the fracking technology has re-opened dormant sites.

[Image courtesy of Flickr user Robert Nunnally via a Creative Commons license] Thanks to fracking and other advancements, there has been an oil and gas boom in North America. And with increased hiring and production, it is important for the oil and gas industry to re-evaluate safety protocols that might have gotten outdated from the last energy boom.

[Image courtesy of Flickr user Robert Nunnally via a Creative Commons license]Thanks to fracking and other advancements, there has been an oil and gas boom in North America. And with increased hiring and production, it is important for the oil and gas industry to re-evaluate safety protocols that might have gotten outdated from the last energy boom.

As has been covered, three western provinces in Canada recently held a Petroleum Safety Conference, and it was covered by OSH Canada magazine editor Jean Lian, who wrote about it in the May/June issue. First, I discussed the part of the article where these provinces have been working with oil and gas companies to update and upgrade their safety guidelines for the sake of this new influx of workers, and then we covered some of the major risks in the industry – the kinds of risks that make “minor” incidents virtually non-existent. Every incident is major.

And what is coming down the pipe in terms of safety has to do with … interestingly, pipe.

Not only are there concerns with the oil and gas and the immense pressure those gases are under, but often the hardware that is used to extract and transport that oil and gas to refineries can also be a concern. As companies work with provincial safety officials to review and re-evaluate existing safety regulations for the industry, they are also moving forward with some new regulations that are due to come out in 2016. In British Columbia, a couple of major incidents involving piping has led the province to change its occupational health and safety regulations for handling it.

Both incidents didn’t kill the workers, thank goodness, but they did cause significant injuries – one worker suffered a compound fracture of the upper leg, which resulted in amputation, and the other had significant internal injuries after being hit in the chest by a 6-by-60 foot joint and being pinned against the bulkhead of the truck that was carrying the pipe.

Now, among some of the other regulatory adjustments and tweaks that have occurred, the oil and gas industry in B.C. (and perhaps other places as well in the near future?), there is an adjustment to the health and safety regulations that will include requirements that all high-pressure piping have some kind of restraint system and to be operated by remote control, so workers won’t have to be in the immediate vicinity of the piping.

With the rsults of the Petroleum Safety Conference, it would seem pretty sure that while the oil and gas industry will always be dangerous work, steps have been taken to make working in the field safer and less risky. Which may, in itself, make working in the western provinces of Canada more attractive for some workers. At least, until the other parts of the continent catch up with safety.

It might be dangerous work, but keeping workers safe does not have to be a pipe dream. Not with vigilant safety personnel who are willing to go the extra mile to invest in safety to help workers and the bottom line.