Oil Field Accidents

Two pipeline spills that occurred in the middle of July 2019 are still under investigation by the North Dakota State Health Department. The spills leaked oilfield wastewater into a Missouri River tributary and pastureland. Cleanup was still occurring at the two different sites of the leaks, where produced water wound up leaking from the pipes.…

July 6th marks six years since the oil train disaster struck Lac-Mégantic, Quebec killing 47 people and destroying much of the small Canadian village. According to the Desmog blog, a Montreal, Manie & Atlantic (MMA) train, which was full of crude oil from the Bakken oil fields, was parked on a track siding in Nantes,…

Workers in oilfields are at risk of heat exposure from the sun and from the equipment they use. In the summer, the risks naturally increase. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) warns employers about the hazards of working in outdoor and indoor environments where the heat could pose a problem. Oil and gas industry…

Over the last several years, the state of North Dakota has seen an acceleration in oil and gas extraction activities. The boom has occurred particularly in the Bakken oil fields area. This thriving industry has also seen a market increase in oil field related accidents at the same time. In 2017, there were seven fatalities…

The oil fields of North Dakota are filled with workers of all experience levels. There are some who have just entered the profession looking to make this a career, and others who are “lifers” in the oil industry closing in on retirement. No matter how long you’ve been working in oil and gas, you know…

There was a longform article in a recent issue of The New Yorker, which profiled the life and work of Rachael Van Horn, a female oilfield pumper in Oklahoma. This article offers a day in the life perspective of the work of a pumper, and more specifically, the difficulties pumpers face – especially when they…

This time of year is brutally cold, and most of us try to stay indoors as much as possible. However, the oil and gas industry doesn’t break for winter, so our outdoor workers are dealing with the rugged and frigid weather every single day. If you’re new to the industry, or haven’t worked on pipelines,…

The Bismarck Tribune reports that Phillips 66 and Bridger Pipeline have announced preliminary plans to build a new pipeline which would transport crude oil from the Bakken and the Rocky Mountain production areas down to Corpus Christi, Texas. The companies report that the new Liberty Pipeline would transport 350,000 barrels of crude oil per day,…

Methane is a gas produced by landfills, coal mines, and wastewater treatment plants, in addition to oil and gas facilities. For years, energy companies have complained that the environmental restrictions requiring them to test for emissions were expensive and difficult, amounting to nothing more than bureaucratic red tape. The Trump administration has finally listened to…

The recent U.S. shale revolution has brought drilling and oil production to places that previously had little industry of the type, like our Bakken Shale Formation. Before, we never had the infrastructure to move product away—but all that changed with the advent of “virtual pipelines,” aka rail tank cars. According to E&E News, at the…