WORKER SAFETY: Oil and gas deaths reached record high in 2012

EnergyWire: Friday, August 23, 2013

The oil and gas industry lost a record number of workers on the job last year, according to new preliminary data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Fatalities for the industry jumped from 112 in 2011 to 138 in 2012, a 23 percent increase and the largest number of deaths of oil and gas workers since the current data series for the BLS Census of Fatal Occupational Injuries (CFOI) began in 2003. The bureau reported an oil and gas fatality rate of 24.2 deaths per 100,000 workers. That’s higher than the 21.2 reported by the notoriously dangerous agriculture, forestry, fishing and hunting sector.

The oil and gas fatality rate is 7.6 times higher than the all-industry rate of 3.2 deaths per 100,000 workers.

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