Canadian Safety Reporter

5 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2016 5 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2016 News | November 2016 | CSR Appeal court drills hole in company's OHS convictions Fact of fatal accident not proof of safety violation in absence of clear evidence of how it happened BY JEFFREY R. SMITH AN ALBERTA court has over- turned the conviction of a well- drilling company on two charges stemming from the death of a worker at a drilling site and or- dered a new trial. Frazier Peterson was a floor- hand for Precision Drilling, a drilling rig contractor based in Calgary. Peterson was working on a rig drilling an oil well near Grande Prairie, Alta., on Dec. 12, 2010. The rig being used had a rotary table mechanism with a drill bit on the end and was drill- ing angled wellbores — or holes — rather than a straight vertical direction. In this case, the rig was drilling a hole in an "S" formation. The rig's crew was removing the drill pipe from the S-shaped hole two 9.3-metre lengths at a time — a procedure called "trip- ping out." The total depth of the hole was 2,416 metres. The rig manager, consultant, driller, de- rickhand, motorman, and two floorhands including Peterson were present. As a length of pipe came up, it released torque that caused it to strike Peterson. None of the other workers witnessed the drillpipe come into contact with Peterson, but they discovered him injured shortly thereafter. Peterson's hard hat wasn't dam- aged, but it became evident that he suffered blunt cranial trauma, killing him. An occupational health and safety inspector came to the wellsite following the fatal ac- cident and issued a stop-work order on that particular rig. The stop-work order was lifted the next day. Occupational health investi- gators learned that the tripping out procedure had been done 11 times that day using the same procedure without incident be- fore Peterson was killed. They also discovered that another drilling company called Sa- vannah had a device on one of its rigs designed to help divert trapped table torque, though the rig wasn't the same type as the one that killed Peterson. Savannah's device also wasn't mandated by any regulation or industry standard. Precision Drilling developed an interlock device for all its rigs a few days later, though it still wasn't made mandatory by gov- ernment regulations or industry standards. Company developed interlock device An expert determined that the table torque — built up while the drill table was turning the pipe and the drill bit created re- sistance on the bottom — was trapped because the brake was engaged. As a result, Precision Drilling was charged with failing to ensure the health and safety of its employees under the Alberta Occupational Health and Safety Act and failing to eliminate or control a hazard to workers, as required under the province's Occupational Health and Safety Code 2009. The trial judge found that the fact Precision Drilling made modifications to its drill rigs af- ter the accident, as well as the fact a competitor, Savannah, had adopted an interlock device, was proof the company should have done more to prevent it. The judge also found the accident was caused by torque building up from the brake being on and the driller attempting to lift the drill stem while the floorhands reached in to remove slips — the Credit: Shutterstock/Kichigin Cause > pg. 8 After a one-day stop-work order, the company was allowed to continue drilling without a change in safety procedures.

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