Oil Field Stand Down | Video

Evan Kruegel | 2/13/2013

North Dakota has the second highest rate of work-related fatalities in the nation, and that`s a disturbing statistic for the Mondaks Safety Network.

"This is a broad spectrum, the reason OSHA came to us and asked us to organize this is because of the high fatality rate here in the Bakken field”, says MonDaks Safety Network Spokesman Dustin Austin.

They`ll be sponsoring a state-wide stand down for safety campaign. The kick off meeting will be tomorrow morning in Minot. OSHA representatives will cover numerous safety issues facing companies in the area.

"The biggest hazards are going to be related around what has caused deaths up here, which are pinch points, fall hazards, electrocution, explosions, those are the big ones that OSHA is going to be talking about when they do there presentation at the meeting", says Austin.

After the meeting, companies will choose a time over the next month where they stop production to review safety.

"We then ask them to take periodic times at their discretion for training on these topics and items that we`ll be discussing in the stand down. We also are asking them to do some focused inspections out on their sites and in their shops to identify some of these hazards that we`ll be identifying in this meeting."

Roughly 400 companies have already signed up, and over 500 are expected to attend. Even companies with positive safety history are encouraged to participate.

"We didn`t want to just cover deaths we wanted to cover injuries because there`s a lot of injuries that are occurring up here. So we wanted to get a snap shop of what`s really occurring in our industry here."

The fatality rate for workers in oil and gas industries last year was 2.88 per 10,000 workers, more than 7 times higher than the average for other industries. While it`s a dangerous field to work in, the safety network hopes the stand down will reduce those numbers, and make the Bakken field a safer place to work.

COMMENT ON THIS STORY

BACK TO NEWS | BACK TO WILLISTON STORIES