There's a new safety orientation program for contractors in the oil and gas industry that aims to save time and money for employers.

Thousands of contractors have to attend safety orientation for each company they work for each year. That leads to a lot of repetition and lost hours they could be working.

Safety is one of the number one concerns for workers in the oil and gas industry. It's why contractors go through safety orientation. But right now, each person is required to go through that each time they work for a new company.

“Sometimes four times a year, sometimes eight times a year, you were sitting in a classroom hearing the same information,” North Dakota Petroleum Council Vice President Kari Cutting said.

With about 30,000 contract employees in the state, Cutting says that amounts to over a million hours spent in redundant orientation. That's why they're introducing One Basin - One Way. The program will focus on 55 topics in a four-hour session and will be good across company lines.

“You will have a card with your picture on it and you'll be able to work on multiple company sites,” Cutting said.

The curriculum is being introduced this week by those who helped develop it, focusing on what the standards are, the Bakken (North Dakota) best practices and state specific challenges.

“We're hoping that this orientation will help lead to a higher safety standard,” Kenley Nebeker, with Williston State College and Train ND said. “We're not just wanting to state the standard but say this is what is really going on out in the field and ways that we can get better.”

Work on the program started last spring with input from producers, contractors and training providers.

The goal is to have classes up and running for the contractors sometime in April.

Source: KFYR TV