Oil Worker’s Death Renews Debate on Safety of Extraction Method

Chevron was fined $350 after an employee at a Kern County field where high-pressure steam is injected into the ground was sucked underground and boiled to death last year.

By Michael J. Mishak, Los Angeles Times
5:50 PM PDT, April 14, 2012

SACRAMENTO — California’s largest oil company failed to warn employees of the dangers in an oil field where a worker was sucked underground and boiled to death last year, state authorities found — and then they fined the firm $350.

The small regulatory penalty, levied after a first investigation cleared Chevron, has angered labor leaders and reignited a debate over the risks of the extraction technique that led to the worker’s death. The method, in which a rush of steam heats the ground and loosens oil deposits, yields much of California’s crude.

michael.mishak@latimes.com

https://gasvets.org/2014/04/07/398/

Oil Field Deaths Could be a Record

Posted: Feb 16, 2012 6:38 PM EST
By Marci Narum, News Anchor / Producer – email

Two oil-field deaths in two weeks–and OSHA says we are on pace to set a record.

The Occupational Health and Safety Administration is investigating the most recent case–a man found dead early today at a fracking site northwest of Parshall. Bismarck Area OSHA director, Tom Deutscher says it was reported to OSHA at 4-o’clock this morning. A compliance officer is at the scene investigating. The name and age of the victim is not known, but Deutscher says the man was an employee of Key Energy Services and was working at a well servicing site. Our calls to Key Energy Services have not been returned.  (Read more….)

https://gasvets.org/2014/04/07/oil-field-deaths-could-be-a-record-2/