According to a recent study conducted by WorkSafeBC, 41 people have died, and nearly 1500 have been injured in BC’s oil and gas exploration industry since 2001. While the injury rate within BC’s “Oilpatch Industry” is still about half the average of all other workplace injuries in the province (approx. 300 per year industry-wide), the duration and cost of injuries is nearly double that of everyone else.

 

Between 2001 and 2005 WorkSafeBC accepted 1,464 claims which cost the exploration and production sector of the petroleum industry about $56 million and over 100,000 productive work days, with injured workers being off the job an average 99 days.

 

That has prompted the industry to increase safety training. Enform, and industry association responsible for training and certification, has taken actions to include health and safety initiatives within their mandate as a response to these recent statistics.

 

According to Don Dahr, WorkSafeBC’s prevention manager in Fort St.John, the trend is actually going down, despite a still booming industry, “But the industry is hiring more and more young workers and it’s important that they have a really good understanding of what the hazards are, and how to control these hazards.”