Oil and gas worker deaths on the decline, but still higher than all-industry rate

The U.S. Department of Labor says that 823 oil and gas extraction workers were killed on the job between 2003 to 2010, a fatality rate seven times greater than the rate for all industries, Mike Soraghan reports for Environment and Energy Publishing. "The 2012 fatality rate for oil and gas extraction was a record 24.2 deaths per 100,000 workers, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. That was more than double the rate of construction worker deaths, higher than coal mining and even above that of the notoriously dangerous agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting sector."

While the fatality rate for oil and gas workers is unavailable for 2013 but is estimated to have decreased, "the fatality rate for the mining sector, which includes drilling, dropped from 15.9 deaths per 100,000 workers in 2012 to 12.2" in 2013, Soraghan writes. Despite the big drop, it's still "substantially higher than construction and nearly four times higher than the all-industry rate."

R. Dean Wingo, who retired in January 2013 as assistant regional administrator in the Dallas office of the Occupational Safety and Health Administration, told Soraghan, "It's still a long way to go, but we're headed in the right direction. They don't like this black eye for the fatalities they've had."

Dennis Schmitz, a safety trainer with 15 years of experience in the oil field and chairman of the MonDaks Safety Network, a group of safety officials from companies drilling in the Bakken Shale, told Soraghan, "It's a highly hazardous industry. We don't have a very good safety record." (Read more)