Yup rigs are extremely dangerous, far from help with a small crew and surrounded by aging tools and machinery and owned by companies that want to cut corners to maximise profits where possible.
Sad to say the company probably saved more than the £287k by not properly maintaining the rigs in the first place. Until you put the fines up they aren’t going to take it seriously enough.
Several-Agent6831 on
Why is the fine 10 times more than the victim surcharge. I’m not sure how hard it would be the change the law on this but it would be a major win for a labour government.
EntertainmentSad3174 on
£287K is a joke. The company would have saved way more than that by not properly maintaining the rig and not properly providing safe systems of work. This is not a penalty. It is actually an encouragement for companies to cut more corners because life is so cheap.
rockandrollmark on
That fine is an absolute joke for what was a completely avoidable loss of life. I used to work for an oil company and safety really was our number one priority. Any moment that even resulted in a worker being injured warranted a stand-down and it was universally acknowledged that from the top down, we were all responsible for ensuring every worker went home at night.
deadeyes1990 on
A bloke went to work and never came home because basic safety wasn’t done properly.
That’s the bit I can’t get past. Not the corporate statement, not the fine, not the legal wording. Just that.
£287k doesn’t feel like justice. It feels like the price tag they put on someone else’s grief and hoped we’d all move on.
Even-Outcome-2342 on
That fine equals the DAY RATE for a single drilling ship. Shows how much contempt the system has for human life.
ComplexOk7313 on
This reminds me of the story I heard on Mrballen. A worker was working on a pipe from a winch that was routed through a 25cm hole in the ceiling above. The winch operator misheard some instructions and retracted the winch, pulling the poor guy through the hole
Common-Ad6470 on
My uncle worked on a rig back in the 70’s and accidents were commonplace, almost accepted as part of the job.
He died a few years after leaving the rigs, he got stomach cancer which he blamed on getting constantly saturated by the chemical muds they used.
fuzyfelt on
I worked on oil rigs in the 90s-2000s.
They were safe. Building sites are much more dangerous.
After piper-alpha it all changed, and that safety change had an effect on the whole HSE, offshore and commercial building.
I’ve got people doing work on my roof now, throwing slates down, not wearing hard hats and joking about head injuries…
PixieT3 on
Poor guy. That fine should be into the million and up, surely, with the added requirement of more spent on safety improvements/regular maintenance.
If you want a taste of life on an oil rig check out game Still Wakes the Deep.
10 Comments
Yup rigs are extremely dangerous, far from help with a small crew and surrounded by aging tools and machinery and owned by companies that want to cut corners to maximise profits where possible.
Sad to say the company probably saved more than the £287k by not properly maintaining the rigs in the first place. Until you put the fines up they aren’t going to take it seriously enough.
Why is the fine 10 times more than the victim surcharge. I’m not sure how hard it would be the change the law on this but it would be a major win for a labour government.
£287K is a joke. The company would have saved way more than that by not properly maintaining the rig and not properly providing safe systems of work. This is not a penalty. It is actually an encouragement for companies to cut more corners because life is so cheap.
That fine is an absolute joke for what was a completely avoidable loss of life. I used to work for an oil company and safety really was our number one priority. Any moment that even resulted in a worker being injured warranted a stand-down and it was universally acknowledged that from the top down, we were all responsible for ensuring every worker went home at night.
A bloke went to work and never came home because basic safety wasn’t done properly.
That’s the bit I can’t get past. Not the corporate statement, not the fine, not the legal wording. Just that.
£287k doesn’t feel like justice. It feels like the price tag they put on someone else’s grief and hoped we’d all move on.
That fine equals the DAY RATE for a single drilling ship. Shows how much contempt the system has for human life.
This reminds me of the story I heard on Mrballen. A worker was working on a pipe from a winch that was routed through a 25cm hole in the ceiling above. The winch operator misheard some instructions and retracted the winch, pulling the poor guy through the hole
My uncle worked on a rig back in the 70’s and accidents were commonplace, almost accepted as part of the job.
He died a few years after leaving the rigs, he got stomach cancer which he blamed on getting constantly saturated by the chemical muds they used.
I worked on oil rigs in the 90s-2000s.
They were safe. Building sites are much more dangerous.
After piper-alpha it all changed, and that safety change had an effect on the whole HSE, offshore and commercial building.
I’ve got people doing work on my roof now, throwing slates down, not wearing hard hats and joking about head injuries…
Poor guy. That fine should be into the million and up, surely, with the added requirement of more spent on safety improvements/regular maintenance.
If you want a taste of life on an oil rig check out game Still Wakes the Deep.