Workers Back At Oil Well Where 5 Died

Crews are back at work trying to coax oil from the Oklahoma well where five men died in a fiery rig explosion in January.

The Oklahoma Corporation Commission confirmed last night that Red Mountain Energy has been fracking, or hydraulically fracturing, the Pryor Trust 0718 well near Quinton, Okla., about 100 miles southeast of Tulsa. Attempts to reach Red Mountain executives last night were unsuccessful.

The rig burned for eight hours after the explosion occurred while the crew was removing pipe from the hole Jan. 22. The workers' bodies were found in the rig's control room.

The explosion was the deadliest oil field accident since at least 2010, when 11 men were killed in the BP PLC explosion in the Gulf of Mexico. The damaged BP well was permanently plugged.

The rig was owned by Patterson-UTI Energy Inc. Three of those who were killed worked for Patterson, which has a troubled safety record. Since 2008, when a U.S. Senate committee called the Houston company "one of the worst violators of workplace safety laws," at least 12 Patterson workers have been killed on the job.

About a month after the Quinton explosion, another Patterson worker was seriously injured by falling pipe at another well in Oklahoma.

Red Mountain notified the state in April that it planned to drill a "sidetrack" around a place where tools had become stuck in the well, according to an updated incident report released by the state yesterday. The report indicated that the company followed state rules and regulations for the procedure.

Patterson did not do the new work on the well, but the name of the drilling contractor could not be determined yesterday.

State officials have not fined Patterson or Red Mountain, although the case remains open. The report does not note any violations of state regulations beyond pollution from diesel and drilling fluids migrating off the well site to a ditch during the fire.

The agency employs "compliance-based" enforcement that shuns fines against violators in favor of working with companies to get their operations back in line.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating Red Mountain and Patterson. The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) is also investigating the explosion. CSB, fashioned after the National Transportation Safety Board, is charged with investigating serious chemical incidents.

At least three lawsuits have been filed by families of the workers killed.

Source: EnergyWire