In the popular imagination, the oil and gas industry is plagued by worker injuries and fatalities, an impression fed by high-profile disasters like Deepwater Horizon. In reality, the oil and gas industry has sophisticated health and safety programs that have contributed to an effective safety culture with an incident rate lower than that of many other industries. According to the American Petroleum Institute, the nonfatal injury and illness rate in U.S. oil and gas in 2021 was 1.6 per 100 full-time workers, which compares to a rate of 2.7 per 100 workers for the rest of U.S. private industry. 

However, according to a recent report from the International Organization of Oil & Gas Producers (IOGP), data suggests that health and safety is encountering some problems, including increases in fatal accidents, incident severity, and LTIR (Lost Time Incident Rate). Among the proposed causes for these increases, three merit particular attention.