Unfortunately, many oil and gas companies prioritize profit over safety, often resulting in worse supervision, faulty equipment, a lack of safety training, and worker fatigue. When explosions occur, they are almost always the result of negligence or intentional shortcuts by companies trying to save a dollar. If you are the victim of a refinery explosion, you need to hire an experienced refinery explosion lawyer to assist you to get better compensation.
Even when oil companies implement proper safety and procedural training, contractors, equipment manufacturers, and other third-party entities can still act negligently or intentionally cut roads, putting the lives of drilling rig workers at risk. Hands of the derrick, pipeline operators, rig workers, oil and gas truck drivers, and other crew members.
Common accidents at refineries
Some of the more common accidents include:
- Blowout Prevention Failures
- Drilling rig collapses
- Defective drilling equipment, valves, machinery
- Electrocutions in oil refineries
- Ergonomic hazards
- Chemical fires on land and offshore
- Pipeline explosions and refinery fires
- Exposure to toxic sulfur hydroxide, carbon monoxide poisoning, or radiation
- Falls from the mast, drilling rigs, derricks
- Injuries to the high-pressure line, pipeline, or rotating well
- Oilfield vehicle accidents (trucks, planes, boats)
- Mine or trench collapses
Oil refinery accidents can cause many possible serious injuries, including amputations, bone fractures, severe burns, blindness, neck, spinal injuries, hearing loss, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), permanent disfigurement, and traumatic brain injury. (TBI). In most cases, maximum financial compensation is critical to full recovery and quality of life.
How to collect compensation for an oilfield accident
Oil and gas companies are very powerful and wealthy that they will use the best legal defense equipment in the country to avoid paying the full compensation you deserve for your injuries.
Without an experienced and aggressive attorney to support your claim, it can be nearly impossible to win against companies using popular defense tactics such as:
- Claiming that you assumed the risk of injury when you signed
- Saying that you were at fault for your own injuries
- Arguing that you made your injuries worse
- Claiming that your injury was not the direct result of any negligence or attempted to harm
- State that you waited too long to file and violated the statute of limitations
- Hide or “clean” the evidence you need to prove your case
In addition to the complexity of oilfield injury cases, statutes of limitations can be short, and potential defendants can quickly begin to clean up the evidence against them.
Therefore, you must contact an experienced oilfield injury attorney as soon as possible. Your attorney will ensure that you meet all deadlines and immediately begin working with OSHA and industry professionals to preserve your case’s evidence.
Also, read about the need to hiring for compensation attorney.
- Extensive experience in lawsuits and litigation on oilfield drilling
- Access to top US expert witnesses (accident reconstruction professionals, OSHA inspectors, confined space experts, engineers, chemists, safety management experts)
- A track record of success in the courtroom
- In-depth knowledge of the oil and gas industry
Always speak with your attorney before signing any papers from your employer or giving any statements about your injuries. Never accept any early settlement amount. Never speak to claims adjusters, co-workers, or others who may be hired to collect evidence against you.