A consultant hired by Broomfield, CO to assess risks at planned Extraction Oil & Gas, Inc. well sites within the city identified 36 gaps in safety plans, most of which have since been addressed by city and company best practice guidelines. However, the consultant, Norwegian-based DNV-GL, did find that two of its recommendations are still not covered by the documents intended to ensure the health and safety of residents.

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.

There is a network of thousands of miles of pipes underlying the frenzied oil and gas development in the Permian Basin of Texas. Nationally, more than 450,000 miles of such gathering lines snake underground from wells, and reports of death and injury have emerged from Texas to Pennsylvania.

The effect of plastic on workers in the plastic industry, Apple’s efforts to resist curbs on distracted driving and amateur video helps a state OSH agency crack down on asbestos violators. These were among the top safety stories featured this week on ISHN.com.

An improperly installed gas connection that allowed natural gas to seep into a single-family house was the probable cause of a deadly 2017 explosion in Millersville, Pennsylvania, the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) has determined. The July 2, 2017 explosion at 206 Springdale Lane killed one person and injured three others, destroyed the residence and significantly damaged six neighboring homes, one of which was subsequently condemned.

The U.S. Department of Labor is investigating whether the U.S. Department of Labor under the Trump administration is following proper procedures when making regulatory changes to worker safety regulations. In a letter to Congressional Democrats, who’d requested an audit of the DOL’s rulemaking process, DOL Inspector General Scott S. Dahl said a review of the “integrity of the rulemaking process” at OSHA was already underway.

A week after a similar incident killed people in Nigeria, a pipeline explosion in Mexico has claimed 85 lives, and injured 58, with dozens more still missing. According to news sources, the disaster occurred as people filled containers with gasoline from a pipeline that was illegally punctured. Fuel theft is widespread in Mexico, causing pipelines to be shutdown repeatedly for the repair of punctures.

A truck carrying oil overturned and exploded in Nigeria on Friday, killing at least a dozen people, and as many as 60, according to news reports. Another 22 people reportedly suffered burn injuries and were taken to local hospitals.

It’s a new year, and in many ways a fresh start; but not for the NORA (National Occupational Research Agenda) councils that continue to build on the efforts of the past two years. The ten sector councils from the second decade of NORA carried forward their work to improve occupational safety and health in industry sectors.