C A N A D A’ S O I L A N D G A S S A F E T Y M A G A Z I N E
PIPELINE
SPRING 2016
ON TENUOUS
GROUND Rethinking security in oil and gas installations
HYDRAULIC FRACTURING
Managing the risks of hydrocarbons
SOUND BITES
Alarm raised over hearing loss
TESTING AIR
Detecting dangers in confined spaces
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| CONTENTS
PIPELINE Vol. 4, No. 1 SPRING 2016
DEPARTMENTS
4 Tough Times 6 8 EDITORIAL
IN THE NEWS
BY THE NUMBERS
FEATURES
10 Danger Zone
ENERGY SECURITY The changing face of terrorism has put the security of Canada’s oil and gas installations, both at home and abroad, on tenuous ground.
16 In the Deep
HYDROCARBONS The vast amounts of hydrocarbons released from fracking present fire and explosion risks. Tapping the earth’s energy deep underground requires effective management of the corresponding risks.
16
22 Sound Advice HEARING LOSS
22
The high incidence of noise-induced hearing loss among oil and gas workers in British Columbia raises questions about exposure levels and the effectiveness of current protective measures.
PRODUCTS
24 It’s a Gas
INSTRUMENTATION/GAS DETECTION For those who work in confined spaces, using the right instrumentation devices to test air quality and detect the presence of combustible or toxic gases enables workers to take the necessary precautions prior to entry.
28 Donning for Danger PROTECTIVE CLOTHING
The clothes on our back are more than just garbs of modesty. Protective clothing also shields workers against injuries from exposure to chemicals, steam or fire.
10
24
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EDITORIAL |
PIPELINE
TOUGH TIMES
I
t has been a while since Canada’s oil and gas sector has heard good news. The prolonged slump in oil prices has put the oil-reliant economies of the western provinces under great duress. Alberta has lost tens of thousands of jobs, and the oil slump has renewed the debate on diversifying the Canadian economy to make it less dependent on the energy sector. While much of the discourse surrounding the industry’s difficulties has focused on the economics of job losses and decreased capital spending, the effect on the human psyche has largely evaded the discussion. The mental toll stemming from the oil slump is no small problem, considering that 720,000 workers in Canada are linked to the oil patch. Even those who have survived a layoff may not be emotionally unscathed. Seeing one’s colleagues lose their jobs is not only depressing; it also triggers anxiety over who will be next on the chopping block. An article published in Metro Calgary in April profiles a geologist in that city who started painting for local food establishments to supplement his income, due to less contract work as a result of the oil downturn. While this geologist’s ability to channel his artistic talent into profitable ends serves as an encouraging anecdote emerging from the beleaguered sector, the apprehension stemming from job-loss anxiety is insidious and relentless. For those who have lost their livelihoods or face such a prospect, what coping strategies are available to them? A recent paper out of Australia suggests a role for companies to play. According to the study, released on April 13, a five-hour educational program can promote resilience among employees facing downsizing and restructuring. The study compared employees who were randomly assigned to receive resil-
Vol. 4, No. 1 Spring 2016
ience intervention, which consisted of five weekly workshops held during lunch hour, with those who did not attend. Results indicate that program participants yielded higher total scores on a scale measuring resilience at work. While a helping hand is always welcome, dealing with job loss or employment insecurity requires a more personal response. Looking for new work opportunities takes time. As such, mental fitness is as important as an impressive resume, and the former often starts with physical activity. Findings from a study out of UC Davis Health System in Sacramento, California, released on February 23, show that people who exercise have better mental fitness. Intense exercise increases the levels of two common neurotransmitters, glutamate and gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA), which are responsible for chemical messaging within the brain. Major depressive disorder is often characterized by depleted glutamate and GABA; exercise activates the metabolic pathway that replenishes these neurotransmitters. These are trying times for the oil and gas industry, and it may not be bottoming anytime soon. As easy-to-reach oil depletes and energy companies continue to tighten their belts in an era when oil extraction becomes more costly and riskier, more people in the sector may find themselves dealing with such unwelcoming situations. While we may have little control over staffing decisions that companies make, we can determine how we respond to challenging times. For those who are affected by the slump, keeping a positive outlook and reaching out to families for support certainly help. Change can be unsettling, but it can also bring about a new trajectory and presents the opportunity to reassess life goals and career paths.
EDITOR EDITOR (CANADIAN OCCUPATIONAL HEALTH & SAFETY NEWS) ASSOCIATE EDITOR HAZARDOUS SUBSTANCES
JEAN LIAN jlian@ohscanada.com JEFF COTTRILL jcottrill@ohscanada.com
WILLIAM M. GLENN
ART DIRECTOR
MARK RYAN
PRINT PRODUCTION MANAGER PRODUCTION MANAGER MARKETING SPECIALIST CIRCULATION MANAGER
PHYLLIS WRIGHT STEVE HOFMANN DIMITRY EPELBAUM BARBARA ADELT
ASSOCIATE PUBLISHER (OHS CANADA MAGAZINE) PUBLISHER PRESIDENT, ANNEX-NEWCOM LP
SHEILA HEMSLEY shemsley@ohscanada.com PETER BOXER pboxer@ohscanada.com ALEX PAPANOU
badelt@bizinfogroup.ca
EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD MEMBERS DAVID IRETON, Safety Professional, Brampton, Ont. ALLAN JOHNSON, Director of Construction, Hospitality, Oil and Gas, Workers’ Compensation Board of B.C., Vancouver, B.C.
JANE LEMKE, Program Manager, OHN Certification Program, Mohawk College, Hamilton, Ont.
DON MITCHELL, Safety Consultant, Mississauga, Ont. MICHELE PARENT, National Manager, Risk Management and Health and Wellness, Standard Life, Montreal, Que.
TERRY RYAN, Workers’ Compensation and Safety Consultant, TRC Group Inc., Mississauga, Ont.
DON SAYERS, Principal Consultant, Don Sayers & Associates, Hanwell, N.B. DAVID SHANE, National Director, Health and Safety, Canada Post Corporation, Ottawa, Ont.
HENRY SKJERVEN, President, The Skjerven Cattle Company Ltd., Wynyard, Sask. PETER STRAHLENDORF, Assistant Professor, School of Environmental Health, Ryerson Polytechnic University, Toronto, Ont.
JONATHAN TYSON, Association of Canadian Ergonomists/Association canadienne d’ergonomie, North Bay, Ont. PIPELINE is the magazine for people who make decisions about health and safety in Canada’s oil and gas industry. It is designed to keep workers, managers and safety professionals informed on issues in the sector, up to date on new developments and in touch with current thinking in the oh&s community.
WEBSITE: http://www.pipelinemagazine.ca INFORMATION AND RECOMMENDATIONS contained in this publication have been compiled from sources believed to be reliable and to be representative of the best current opinion on the subject. No warranty, guarantee, nor representation is made by Annex-Newcom LP as to the absolute correctness or sufficiency of any representation contained in this publication.
PIPELINE is published twice a year by Annex-Newcom LP, a leading Canadian information company with interests in daily and community newspapers and business-to-business information services. ADDRESS: PIPELINE, 80 Valleybrook Drive, Toronto, ON, M3B 2S9. TELEPHONE: Customer Service: 1-866-543-7888; Editorial: 416-510-6893; Sales: 416-510-5102; Fax: 416-510-5167.
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SINGLE COPIES: Canada: $6.00; USA: $8.00; foreign $10.00 Printed in Canada. All rights reserved. From time to time, we make our subscription list available to select companies and organizations whose product or service may interest you. If you do not wish your contact information to be made available, please contact us via one of the following methods: (Tel) 416-442-5600 ext. 3636; (Fax) 416-510-6875; (E-mail) stelian@annexnewcom.ca; (Mail) Privacy Officer, Business Information Group, 80 Valleybrook Drive, Toronto, ON M3B 2S9 Canada. ISSN: 2291-3173 (Print) ISSN: 2291-3181 (Digital) The contents of this magazine are protected by copyright and may be used for your personal, non-commercial purposes only. All other rights are reserved, and commercial use is prohibited. To make use of any of this material, you must first obtain the permission of the owner of the copyright. For further information, please contact the editor.
Jean Lian Editor jlian@ohscanada.com 4 | SPRING 2016 PIPELINE
Publications mail agreement no. 43005526. Date of issue: SPRING 2016.
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IT’S WHAT’S INSIDE THAT COUNTS
IN THE NEWS |
>> O ILSANDS A SOURCE OF SECONDARY ORGANIC AEROSOLS: STUDY FORT MCMURRAY — A study, published online on May 25 in the journal Nature, cites the oilsands operations as a large source of secondary organic aerosols (SOA). As the contribution of oilsands exploration to SOA formation, which affects air quality and climate, remains poorly understood, the study uses data from airborne measurements over the Canadian oilsands, laboratory
experiments and a box-model study to quantify the magnitude of SOA production from oilsands emissions. The findings indicate that evaporation and atmospheric oxidation of low-volatility organic vapours from the mined oilsands material is directly responsible for the majority of the observed SOA mass, and that the resultant production rates of 45 to 84 tonnes per day make the oilsands
NEW BRUNSWICK TO CONTINUE FRACKING MORATORIUM INDEFINITELY FREDERICTON — Hydraulic fracturing will continue to be banned in New Brunswick indefinitely, the Ministry of Energy and Mines announced on May 27. The Ministry based its recent decision on findings from the Commission on Hydraulic Fracturing, which it had assembled last year to study the technique’s safety implications. The provincial government had declared a moratorium on fracking in December 2014, but offered to lift the ban if the oil and gas sector met certain requirements. “We have been clear that we would not allow this activity to go forward unless our five conditions were met,” Energy and Mines Minister Donald Arseneault says in a statement. The conditions to which Arseneault
refers are the following: a social licence for fracking; availability of information on the technique’s effects on health and water; a plan to mitigate fracking’s effects on infrastructure and waterwaste disposal; a process for consulting with First Nations; and a mechanism to maximize benefits for the public, including a royalty structure. “The industry has not met the conditions,” Arseneault says. “We will continue to support other resource projects, such as the Energy East pipeline and the Sisson mine.” New Brunswick was the fourth Canadian province to ban hydraulic fracturing, following the leads of Quebec, Newfoundland and Labrador and Nova Scotia.
>> F IRST NATIONS LEADERS TAKE LNG PROTEST TO THE UNITED NATIONS NEW YORK — First Nations leaders from northern British Columbia took their opposition to plans to build a liquefied natural-gas (LNG) project in their ancestral lands to the United Nations (UN). The delegation, arriving at the UN headquarters in New York on May 11, called upon member nations of the world body to support their demand that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s government reject the proposed Pacific Northwest LNG project being advanced by Malaysia’s state oil company, Petronas. “We will not sell our salmon future for any price,” says Algmxaa, Murray Smith, one of the House Leaders of the Gitwilgyoots Tribe, which is one of the Nine Allied Tribes of Lax Kw’alaams expressing concerns about the threat posed to wild salmon habitats by Pacific Northwest’s $36 billion fossil-fuel project proposed for the mouth of the Skeena River. “We are not against development, but we are against this dangerous, irresponsible, foreign-owned and illegal intrusion into our sacred homelands.” The Canadian government is considering an amended proposal from Pacific Northwest LNG as part of a federal environmental assessment that has been criticized by salmon and climate scientists and Aboriginal legal scholars, who believe the process does not meet the standard of “free, prior and informed consent” required by the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. 6 | SPRING 2016 PIPELINE
one of the largest sources of anthropogenic SOA in North America. Heavy oil and bitumen account for more than 10 per cent of global oil production today, and this figure continues to grow. “The production of the more viscous crude oils could be a large source of SOA in many production and refining regions worldwide,” the study notes. “Such production should be considered when assessing the environmental impacts of current and planned bitumen and heavyoil extraction projects globally.”
ALBERTA ANNOUNCES NEW ROYALTY STRUCTURE EDMONTON — The Alberta government has released technical formulas of a new royalty system that will reward producers who innovate to reduce costs below the industry average and increase production. The formulas are part of the implementation of Alberta’s Modernized Royalty Framework, announced on January 29 and taking effect in 2017. The Framework was developed based on recommendations from the Alberta Royalty Review Advisory Panel after a six-month review process. According to a provincial government statement dated April 21, royalty payments will be calculated based on a formula that measures a well’s true vertical depth, total lateral depth and the amount of drilling or proppant used. Revenue from the well will be tracked monthly by multiplying production volumes of the extracted oil or gas by their respective commodity par prices, as published by Alberta Energy. The company will pay a flat royalty of five per cent on early production up until well revenue exceeds a normalized well cost allowance, after which the company will pay royalty rates ranging from five to 40 per cent on all subsequent production. When resource production from the well drops below the Maturity Threshold, royalty rates will be adjusted downward to reflect declining production rates and accommodate the mature economics of low productivity. The royalty changes apply to non-oilsands wells drilled on or after January 1, 2017. Wells drilled before the effective date will maintain their existing royalty structure until January 1, 2027.
| IN THE NEWS
>> ENERGY COMPANY FINED RICHMOND — Energy firm Progress Energy Canada Limited is facing more than $77,000 in fines stemming from an incident that injured a worker. According to the March/April 2016 issue of the WorkSafeBC publication WorkSafe Magazine, the company had been contracted at a pipeline-installation worksite near Buckinghorse when a pipe slid from a trailer and crushed the leg of a worker from another firm. A WorkSafeBC investigation found that the firm had not developed safe procedures for loading
and unloading pipes, and the firm was sentenced to pay a $64,235.41 fine last September 15. In a separate incident, a WorkSafeBC inspection of the company’s logging and land-clearing site in Fort St. John found numerous occupational health and safety infractions, including a lack of regular site inspections and safety meetings, as well as risks posed by trees and improper uses of a log loader. The firm was issued a penalty of $13,277.67 last October 1.
WELDER FALLS TO DEATH EDMONTON — A worker at a TransCanada pipeline construction site in northern Alberta has died after falling about 20 metres while working on some scaffolding on March 21. The 29-year-old welder was a contracted employee of Horton CBI Limited, according to information from the oh&s department of the Alberta Ministry of Labour. “OHS is investigating, and there is a stop-work order in place,” says Lauren Welsh, a communications representative with the Ministry. Welsh cannot confirm whether the deceased worker was wearing fall-protection gear at the time, noting that the Ministry investigation will look into the causes and whether the tragedy could have been prevented. The worksite, where a new tank terminal is under construction for TransCanada’s Northern Courier Pipeline Project, is located approximately 100 kilometres north of Fort McMurray. Mark Cooper, the senior lead of media relations for TransCanada, says the company temporarily suspended work at the site to allow all employees to deal with the tragedy and that the corporation will offer any assistance needed by both oh&s officials and Horton CBI in their investigations. “All [lessons] from this tragedy will be applied to help further protect workers and keep worksites safe,” he adds.
>> N EW REQUIREMENTS ANNOUNCED FOR DANGEROUS GOODS, CROSSINGS FEDERAL — Transport Canada marked Rail Safety Week with pledges to improve the safety of the rail system and the transportation of dangerous goods through funding and a new protective direction. On April 27, federal Minister of Transport Marc Garneau said Transport Canada will provide more than $10.9 million to the Grade Crossing Improvement Program, which aims to upgrade railway crossings across Canada based on traffic volume and accident history. The amount is expected to cover improvements to more than 400 railway crossings. The following day, Garneau announced a new protective direction
regarding the transportation of dangerous goods. Protective Direction 36, which took effect immediately, increases the amount of information that every Class 1 railway — defined as a rail company whose revenue topped $250 million during each of the previous two years — must provide to municipalities and first responders to enhance emergency planning, risk assessment and training. Protective Direction 36 is an expansion of Protective Direction 32, which had been in effect since November 2013 in response to the Lac-Mégantic disaster. The following are among the requirements of the direction: Class 1 railways
COASTAL GASLINK PIPELINE PROJECT GETS PERMITS VANCOUVER — The BC Oil and Gas Commission has given the green light to TransCanada’s Coastal GasLink Pipeline Project. The company received the last two of 10 permits that are required from the Commission for the construction and operation of the proposed pipeline and its related facilities. “This is a significant regulatory milestone for our project, which is a key component of TransCanada’s growth plan that includes more than $13 billion in proposed natural-gas pipeline projects, which support the emerging liquefied natural-gas industry on the British Columbia Coast,” Russ Girling, TransCanada’s president and chief executive officer, says in a statement dated May 5. Eight of the permits relate to pipeline construction, while two are for pipeline-related facilities. Coastal GasLink received an Environmental Assessment Certificate from the B.C. Environmental Assessment Office in October 2014. The pipeline will connect to LNG Canada’s proposed natural-gas liquefaction and export facility near Kitimat. Construction will begin in 2017 if the partners of LNG Canada elect to proceed with the project.
must provide dangerous-goods reports to municipalities twice a year immediately and quarterly within the next 24 months; railways must adopt a standardized format for presenting these data; Class 1 railways must post public reports online, breaking down the 10 most common dangerous goods they transport through each province; and communities may share dangerous-goods data with emergency planners and emergencyresponse officials within their jurisdictions or with whom they have joint mutual-aid agreements. Transport Canada developed the new direction after consultations with the Railway Association of Canada, Canadian National, Canadian Pacific and the Federation of Canadian Municipalities. PIPELINE SPRING 2016 | 7
BY THE NUMBERS |
Wildfire exacerbates recession woes The impact of the wildfire in Fort McMurray on Alberta’s overall GDP will be slightly negative for 2016, but the effects will be hardly noticeable at a national level, according to a briefing released by the Conference Board of Canada on May 17. The shutdown of activity in Fort McMurray and in the oilsands will have a major impact on the local economy in the short term, and the extent of the effect will depend on the length of the shutdown. The Conference Board estimates that lostoil production will average about 1.2 million barrels per day for 14 days, translating to roughly $985 million in lost real GDP or 0.33 per cent out of the province’s GDP this year, and a mere 0.06 per cent out of the national GDP. Much of the economic activity lost in the city will likely accrue elsewhere. Firefighting, emergency and clean-up effort will generate much economic activity, and the rebuilding effort is estimated to contribute some $1.3 billion in real GDP to Alberta’s economy in 2017, adding 0.4 per cent to overall growth. Overall, the net effect on the provincial economy is expected to be relatively minor and temporary, as real GDP growth will be boosted by a similar amount when oilsands production ramps back up.
Conditional approval recommended
198,315
Estimated employment in Canada’s oil and gas sector in 2015, a 12 per cent drop or loss of 28,145 jobs from 2014. Source: Labour Market Outlook 2016 to 2020: Canada’s Oil and Gas Industry
10,000
Number of people, including employees and their families and Fort McMurray residents, that Suncor moved out of the region to escape the wildfire. Source: Suncor, May 8, 2016
The National Energy Board (NEB) has issued a 533-page report recommending Governor in Council approve the Trans Mountain Expansion Project, subject to 157 conditions, according to a statement from the NEB dated May 19. The 157 conditions include regulatory and/or overarching requirements, as well as requirements pertaining to project engineering and safety, emergency preparedness and response, environmental protection, people, communities and lands, economics and financial responsibility and project-related marine shipping. The Board’s recommendation follows a public hearing process by a threemember NEB panel that considered evidence and arguments made for and against Trans Mountain’s application to construct and operate the project, including information regarding the consultation undertaken with Indigenous groups, the potential impacts and proposed mitigation measures and the benefits and burdens associated with the project. Taking into account all the evidence and relevant factors, the Board determined that there are considerable benefits nationally, regionally and to some degree locally and that the benefits outweigh the residual burdens. According to information from the NEB, the Trans Mountain Expansion Project proposes to expand the existing Trans Mountain pipeline system between Edmonton and Burnaby in British Columbia by increasing the capacity of the existing pipeline from 300,000 barrels per day (bpd) to 890,000 bpd. Almost 90 per cent of the pipeline route for the project parallels existing disturbance, which will reduce the need for new disturbance and minimize the potential impact of construction.
˚ 0 36 8 | SPRING 2016 PIPELINE
62%
Forecasted decline in capital spending in Canada’s oil and natural gas sector since 2014 — the largest two-year decline since the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers and its predecessor organizations started tracking this data in 1947. Source: Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers
20.7 tonnes
Canada’s carbon dioxide equivalent emissions per capita. The country’s greenhouse-gas emissions are high compared to its peers. Only the United States and Australia fare worse. Source: The Conference Board of Canada, April 21
Broken pipeline spills oil in California Hazmat crews were sopping up as much as 21,000 gallons of oil after an underground pipeline in rural Northern California ruptured. Shell Pipeline Company reported the leak after detecting a loss of pressure in a line between Coalinga (Fresno County) and Martinez. The company said a response team was clearing contaminated soil and assisting local and state officials monitor air, water and ground conditions in mostly farm and pastureland near Tracy, an hour east of Sam Francisco. This spill came less than two weeks after the company dumped nearly 90,000 gallons of oil Source: The Associated Press into the Gulf of Mexico in mid-May.
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FEATURE | ENERGY SECURITY
DANGER It has been a dangerous year. In May, armed militants attacked a major Chevron oil and gas facility off Nigeria’s southern coast, leading to the shutdown of production. Then in March, Islamic militants launched four home-made mortars over the fence of a gas-processing plant in southern Algeria before fleeing into the desert. Last August, a Croatian oil and gas surveyor working in Egypt was snatched from a Cairo highway and beheaded by an Islamic State splinter group.
By William M. Glenn 10 | SPRING 2016 PIPELINE
O
ver the last 12 months, dozens of other oil or gas pipelines, pumping stations, storage tanks and refineries have been bombed, breached or sabotaged in Libya, Turkey, Syria, Iraq and Yemen. “The nature of world terrorism has changed dramatically in the last three years, but most Canadian companies are not interested in security until something bad happens,” says Alan Bell, president of Globe Risk International in Toronto. “Then suddenly, they are Born Again. Of course, by that time, it is too late.” In 1993, following 22 years with the British Special Air Service (SAS), Bell decided to “fill a niche” in the security business by helping oil and gas, mining and other natural-resource operations combat the ever-increasing threat posed by criminal and terrorist groups. Today, he is still working to protect the “nouns” — security-speak for people, places and things — in some “pretty bad places” around the world, including the Middle East, Central and South America and Africa. But Canada’s oil and gas sector is also under threat. “Islamic State knows the best way to attack us is to destroy our economy. Oil revenues fund much of their own operations around the world, so they are well aware that oil and gas underpins much of the Canadian economy,” Bell says. As a result, every Canadian oil and gas facility — including refineries, storage depots, well heads, pipelines and even head office buildings of an oil company — “must be considered at risk,” he cautions. HEADING NORTH Is terrorism on the rise? That depends on the particular brand of terrorism and where it is taking place. “The year 2015 was the most lethal for terrorist attacks in Western Europe in nearly a decade,” says James Gregory, regional director for Aon Crisis Management in Toronto. Gregory is responsible for the company’s portfolio of terrorism, political risk, kidnap and ransom, and product recall lines of insurance. “That doesn’t mean the highest number of attacks — less than one per cent of all terrorist attacks last year took place in Western Europe or North America — but the greatest number of deaths.” These attacks are generally linked to, or inspired by, the jihadist group Islamic State (IS), which has overrun large areas of Syria and Iraq. In addition, reports of far-right activism and civil unrest stemming from the European migrant crisis have also increased in several countries. Many attacks are perpetrated by “self-radicalized individuals,” often inspired by extremist ideologies found on Internet websites or social media, according to a paper published in the April issue of the journal Perspectives on Terrorism. Although some may be politically active or religiously inspired, “they are typi-
ENERGY SECURITY | FEATURE cally doing it ‘off their own bat’, rather than following the instructions of some evil overlord,” Gregory says. “But despite the fact they are operating without support, their attacks are well organized.” The current IS terrorist model seems to favour mass-casualty attacks, typically executed with automatic weapons rather than explosive devices. Given the current level of police and security-agency vigilance, “it has become much harder to source the raw materials needed to fashion homemade bombs these days. It is easier for extremists to obtain automatic weapons and ammunition,” Gregory suggests.
Is terrorism on the rise? That depends on the particular brand of terrorism and where it is taking place. SOFT TARGETS Terrorists are not targeting infrastructure, power plants or industrial facilities, at least not in the Western world. Instead, they are focusing on “soft” targets — killings that take place in concert halls, sports arenas, restaurants, churches, shopping malls and airport waiting rooms, for example. “These are people with guns attacking public venues at predictable times when large numbers of people are likely to be present,” Gregory says. Each year, Aon updates its Terrorism and Political Violence Map, which details risk levels around the world. For the 2016 edition, Aon and its analysts raised the risk ratings for 18 countries — mostly in the Middle East, South Asia (Afghanistan and Pakistan) and Saharan and sub-Saharan Africa — and lowered the ratings for 13 countries, according to a statement that the company issued on April 16. “That is the first time in three years that the overall net risk rating for global terrorism has increased,” Gregory reports. Despite increasing regional instability worldwide, Canada’s risk rating has remained static for 2016. Although there have been a number of serious attacks on oil and gas facilities in the Near East and North Africa over the last two years, “we haven’t seen many parallel incidents in North America,” he notes. But that does not mean attacks on Canadian oil and gas facilities are entirely unknown. A small and largely reclusive farming community of religious fundamentalists sabotaged sour gas wells in Alberta back in the PIPELINE SPRING 2016 | 11
FEATURE | ENERGY SECURITY
1990s. The members of the Trickle Creek farm and their leader, Wiebo Ludwig, believed that they were being “poisoned” by hydrogen sulphide gas flared by nearby sour gas wells in the Peace River region. In April 2000, Ludwig was convicted of blowing up one well, vandalizing another and counselling an undercover police officer “to possess an explosive substance.” He was sentenced to 28 months in prison, but continued to proclaim his innocence until his death from esophageal cancer in 2012. And in 2008 and 2009, several of Encana Corporation’s gas pipelines near Dawson Creek, British Columbia were bombed — attacks that have yet to be solved to this day. It can take a significant commitment of time, money and resources to blow up an oil or gas pipeline in some remote area. “Today’s terrorist is more likely to burst into head office brandishing an automatic weapon,” Gregory suggests. ELUSIVE ENEMY “The terrorism threat level is very fluid, ebbing and flowing in response to the evolving political realities of the last year-and-a-half,” says Professor Michael Zekulin, a lecturer with the Department of Political Sciences at the University of Calgary. He specializes in terrorism, radicalization and security issues. While academics argue over the definition, “terrorism generally involves violence or the threat of violence,” Prof. Zekulin says. Environmental activists, First Nations and community groups that are hanging banners, staging sit-ins or blocking access roads are, by definition, non-violent and “are not eco-terrorists.” The mainstream environmental movement focus12 | SPRING 2016 PIPELINE
es on using established political channels — circulating petitions, submitting briefs, holding press conferences — to achieve its aims. “However, more extreme splinter groups, like the Earth Liberation Front (ELF), may break away when a few individuals decide that these legitimate forms of non-violent protest are not getting the job done and decide to up the ante,” Prof. Zekulin explains. These outliers “represent a very, very, very small number,” Prof. Zekulin adds, “but as we have seen in Brussels and Paris, small groups can cause tremendous chaos.” For example, ELF is responsible for hundreds of attacks across the United States, including some serious arson attacks. Virulent opposition to pipelines that would be used to ship huge volumes of bitumen from Alberta’s oilsands to the west coast of Canada or south to the Gulf of Mexico had threatened to cause such splintering. But the White House has denied the required Presidential Permit for the United States’ portion of TransCanada’s Keystone XL Pipeline Project to the south, while Enbridge’s Northern Gateway Project to the Pacific seems to be delayed indefinitely. “Those developments pretty much negate the need for any kind of additional action,” Prof. Zekulin suggests. “But if either of those projects are ever ‘back on the table’, the risk of domestic terrorism may begin to escalate again.” PEACEFUL PROTEST “The environmental movement is committed to peaceful protest, including acts of civil disobedience that may break the law, but always in a peaceful way,” stresses Dr. Keith Stewart, a climate and energy campaigner with Greenpeace Canada in Toronto. “We would never support or condone any action that would pose a risk to the health and safety of oilfield workers. Violence is wrong and incredibly counterproductive,” he adds. Last spring, while appearing before the federal Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security regarding Bill C-51, the government’s proposed Anti-terrorism Act, 2015, Dr. Stewart said that “Greenpeace’s mission was forged in non-violent direct action, and we have used it to great effect over 40 years.” He adds that the group has been instrumental in ending nuclear tests in the South Pacific, as well as scientific and commercial whaling and toxic dumping in the world’s oceans, among other successful campaigns. “Since its beginning, Greenpeace has pursued an unbroken history of non-violence, even when violence is directed against us.” After an action, Dr. Stewart adds that Greenpeace pays its fines and covers the cost of any unintended damage that may have occurred. These days, some of that “peaceful confrontation” is directed at oil and gas operations that Greenpeace believes to be at least partly responsible for ongoing
ENERGY SECURITY | FEATURE climate change. In March 2013, Dr. Stewart and a colleague chained themselves to the main gate of Kinder Morgan’s marine terminal in Burnaby, British Columbia — the terminus of the company’s Trans Mountain pipeline — which carries bitumen from the oilsands of Northern Alberta to the port facility. More than a dozen other Greenpeace protesters unfurled banners and painted slogans on oil storage tanks, occupying the facility from dawn till dusk, until RCMP officers escorted them off the site. The company is seeking approval to twin its existing pipeline, expand the port facilities and increase the capacity of the system from 300,000 to 890,000 barrels per day. A major project of this scope engenders a lot of strong opinions, and “not everyone will be supportive of our proposed expansion,” says Ali Hounsell, spokesperson for the Trans Mountain Expansion Project in Burnaby. “Our number one concern is for the safety of the public, our employees and our neighbours, as well the security and safety of our operations.” The company points out that there are many ways for the public to express opposition and opinions in a safe and lawful manner. “We encourage anyone interested in our proposal to engage in a meaningful and constructive dialogue with us,” Hounsell says. MAKING A STATEMENT While the risk of eco-terrorism remains largely hypothetical, the depredations of IS radicals are still very real. “International terrorists relish symbolism and favour actions that make a clear and obvious statement,” Prof. Zekulin says. The September 11 attacks, with hijacked planes aimed directly at the United States’ financial hub in New York City, its centre of military might in the Pentagon and the seat of political power in Washington and the White House, were prime examples. “What could you target in the Canadian oil and gas sector that would make the same kind of bold statement the whole world would understand?” Prof. Zekulin asks. Attacking an isolated oilsands facility located hours and hours north of Edmonton is unlikely to gain international attention. Prof. Zekulin does not discount the possibility that committed radicals could stay busy “monkey-wrenching” distant pipelines and isolated gas wells, causing nasty little spills and blow-outs with little chance of being caught in the act. “If you had a lot of people who wanted to sabotage oil and gas infrastructure, they would probably be able to,” he says. But with the industry in the economic doldrums already, “it may not be the high-profile economic target it once was.” While the price of oil may be depressed, Canadian pipeline companies certainly take the risk of sabotage seriously. It is not just a prudent management decision, but a regulatory requirement. Canada’s federal and provincial pipeline-safety regulations require compa-
PROTECTING “CRITICAL INFRASTRUCTURE” The Canadian government recognizes that the risks to the country’s critical infrastructure, including that of the oil and gas sector, are increasingly complex and frequent, according to Mylène Croteau, spokesperson for Public Safety Canada (PSC) in Ottawa. Those risks could be natural or man-made, accidental or intentional, and would include events like the 1998 ice storm, the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the 2003 blackout, the 2003 SARS outbreak, Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and the 2015/16 Islamic State (IS) attacks in Paris and Brussels. Created in 2003, PSC helps coordinate activities among those federal departments and agencies responsible for national security and the safety of Canadians. The responsibility for strengthening the resilience of Canada’s critical infrastructure is shared among federal, provincial and territorial governments, local authorities and the owners and operators of that infrastructure “who bear the primary responsibility for protecting their assets and services,” Croteau explains, adding that the PSC works with its partners to identify threats and vulnerabilities and prepare for all types of disruptions. Public Safety Canada conducts site assessments of critical facilities, including oil refineries, nuclear generating stations, border crossings, stadiums, biotechnology labs and liquefied natural-gas terminals. “We have also established an exercise tool, which helps owners and operators develop and test measures to enhance their resilience against a full range of risks and threats,” Croteau reveals. Under the PSC’s National Strategy for Critical Infrastructure, ten critical infrastructure sector networks have been established, with Natural Resources Canada leading the Energy and Utilities sector network. Each network provides “a standing forum for discussion and information sharing among sector-specific industry stakeholders and governments,” according to Croteau.
nies to develop, implement and maintain emergencymanagement programs that anticipate the threat of terrorist attacks, among other risks. The requirements for such a program are set out in the CSA Group’s national security-management standard for petroleum and natural-gas industry systems. “It is through this emergency-management program that companies consider what critical infrastructure assets may be vulnerable to those who may wish to cause harm or disruption to energy flow,” says Patrick Smyth, vice president of safety and engineering with the Canadian Energy Pipeline Association (CEPA) in Calgary. Association members operate 119,000 kilometres of transmission pipeline — much of that through remote regions of the country — shipping 97 per cent of Canada’s natural gas and onshore crude oil production to markets within the country and the United States. To properly maintain an emergency-management program, “companies continually identify and assess potential hazards,” Smyth notes. “This means that companies must keep their finger on the pulse of security risks and implement additional mitigation as and PIPELINE SPRING 2016 | 13
FEATURE | ENERGY SECURITY
“ The Canadian attitude can be summed up in one word —
‘complacency.’”
when required to address that risk.” To help keep their programs up to date on the latest threats, CEPA and its member companies participate in the Natural Resources Canada Energy and Utilities Sector Network, as well as Public Safety Canada’s Cross Sector Network, where security issues — including physical and cyber-security threats — are discussed. “There is no ‘one-size-fits-all’ solution when it comes to mitigating security risks,” Smyth says. “Companies will implement the appropriate mitigation, be it administrative or engineering in nature, to sufficiently address the risk” and alleviate the potential for a security breach that can put both a facility and its workers at risk, he adds. KIDNAPPING — A GROWTH INDUSTRY The risks faced by Canada’s oil and gas workers rise exponentially when they leave the country’s relatively safe shores. Many of the world’s richest petroleum and mineral reserves tend to be buried in the most politically volatile regions of the world, “places where local governments exert only the most tenuous grasp on the rule of law or are engaged in running battles with rebel and/or terrorist forces,” Prof. Zekulin says. “This is certainly not the geopolitical topography we are used to in Western Canada.” Raising the risk level are kidnappers who have become more emboldened over the last five years. “They see ransoms as a viable resource stream to be extracted from the local population and, when they are available, from Western workers and tourists,” Prof. Zekulin notes. Western hostages bring richer ransoms and draw greater international attention. “Terrorist groups are very rational and constantly learning new approaches. They see kidnapping working for other groups and ask, ‘Why not us too?’” Every year, 15,000 to 20,000 terrorist or crime-related kidnappings are reported worldwide, and those numbers are on the rise, according to Crisis Management: Protecting Your People, Assets and Brand, published by Aon plc in 2012. “There are thousands of kidnappings perpetrated around the world that are never reported,” Bell says. “Terrorism, the proliferation of cheap weapons and the globalization of organized crime have made kidnapping one of the most lucrative growth markets in the world, currently worth over $2.5 billion a year.” 14 | SPRING 2016 PIPELINE
Each year, Bell conducts an international security course as part of the Prospectors and Developers Association of Canada trade show and conference, teaching resource companies with overseas operations how to respond to kidnapping and ransom demands and other terrorism-related threats. “This year, I had 15 top CEOs attend. I have never seen that before,” Bell reveals. “They didn’t send their managers or security staff, but came themselves, listened closely and asked all the right questions.” Bell says the “first thing you need to know is, you can’t prevent a kidnapping no matter what you do.” If staying home is not an option, Canadian executives and staff working in or visiting high-risk areas can take the following steps to reduce their vulnerability and increase their chances of getting back home safely, should something go wrong: • Visit the Canadian Government’s “Travel Advice and Advisories” website (http://travel. gc.ca/travelling/advisories) and read the assessment report for one’s destination, which covers security, health and natural-disaster risks, as well as regional advisories for any areas that are experiencing high crime or terrorist attacks. • Buy kidnap and ransom insurance. Experts say that it is not that expensive to buy a couple of million dollars’ worth of peace of mind in case one is targeted. Do not rely on the government, as Canada’s policy is not to pay ransoms to terrorists for the safe return of kidnapped nationals. • Establish and maintain good communications links in advance to keep staff informed of one’s travelling plans and itinerary. • Consider attending a Hostile Environment Awareness Training course on what to expect and how to behave if one has been kidnapped. LETTING THE GUARD DOWN Regardless of whether Canadian oil and gas companies rank high on the modern terrorist’s target list or not, these facilities are still vastly undermanned when it comes to security, Bell cautions. “The Canadian attitude can be summed up in one word — ‘complacency’. Companies have told me that terrorism isn’t an issue, that terrorism happens in
ENERGY SECURITY | FEATURE other countries.” Following the 9/11 attacks, every office tower in Toronto had security guards at the front doors checking suitcases and handbags. “That lasted all of three days,” Bell says. “They simply didn’t have the budget or enough trained staff to maintain that level of security 24-7.” The bottom line? It was just too expensive. Today, too many companies are doing little more than ticking off the boxes on the basic security checklist, according to Bell. They hire local security — often retired police or RCMP officers — install some cameras and buy some insurance. “I would never hire former law enforcement,” Bell says. “They think they understand security, but they don’t know how to prevent an attack. That has never been part of their job description. They are fundamentally reactive, not proactive.” Gregory and his colleagues in Aon conduct threat and vulnerability assessments, terrorism risk modelling and “probable maximum-loss studies” to help clients understand and quantify their financial exposures under various scenarios involving terrorist attacks, international or domestic. Based on these assessments, a company can adjust its terrorism insurance coverage based on data-driven analytics, upgrade its security procedures to prevent attacks, work to mitigate potential losses and reduce potential liability in the event an attack. Auditors, many with extensive military experience, assess what a company is doing and what it can do better. “This is neither an inexpensive nor a simple process,” Gregory explains. A full audit will take weeks of planning and weeks of work, but the results can reduce a company’s risk profile significantly and hopefully, drive down the premiums paid for comprehensive terrorist or business-disruption insurance. Once the audit has been completed and vulnerabilities identified, a client can beef up security, protect its supply chain, guard against business interruption, improve resiliency and protect employees’ health and safety. “A company has to balance optimal security procedures against what is considered acceptable by its staff, customers and the local community,” Gregory advises.
He cites the example that many consumers might object to a full security scan before being allowed to enter a local mall, but they are more likely to regard a similar measure at a nuclear power plant perfectly reasonable. THE MODERN TERRORIST Learning how to address the threat posed by the modern breed of leaderless, lone-wolf terrorists effectively remains a learning curve that needs to be scaled. “It is all very decentralized. Such an individual may never come up for air or to the attention of security agencies until they do whatever it is that they plan to do,” Prof. Zekulin says. For Dr. Paul Joosse, an assistant professor of criminology at the University of Hong Kong, the threat posed by lone wolves pales in comparison to that presented by a well-organized, more capable terrorist group. “The lone wolves are also self-limiting. They are often caught or killed after their attacks.” Terrorist groups are not waging strategic military campaigns in Western Europe or North America, targeting essential energy infrastructure — at least not yet. “When they attack, they are picking the soft targets that fire people’s imagination and draw on their heartstrings,” he says. “Beheading someone is much more cost-effective in terms of instilling fear and gaining notoriety than trying to destroy an oil or gas plant. I can’t see that being a high-priority target.” Regardless of whether a self-radicalized individual or an international terror group represents the greater threat, Canada’s oil and gas companies are working closely with federal and provincial agencies to monitor potential risks. There is a lot of security-related discussion back and forth, and companies are certainly aware of world events unfolding on the terror front. The steps they have taken in response and the security protocols they have put in place “are ‘appropriate’ to current terrorism risk levels,” Prof. Zekulin says. “But if somebody really wanted to do something bad, then it would be very difficult to stop them.” PL William M. Glenn is a writer in Toronto. Follow us on Twitter @PipelineOHS
PIPELINE SPRING 2016 | 15
FEATURE | HYDROCARBONS
IN THE
DEEP The New Brunswick Commission on Hydraulic
Fracturing released its final three-volume report, which does not take a stand on lifting the province’s year-old moratorium on the practice. What it does reveal is how complex the risks are. By Jacob Stoller
16 | SPRING 2016 PIPELINE
F
or decades, Canadians have enjoyed the fruits of being an energy-rich country, but at a price — oilsands production has been environmentally controversial. As we enter a new era of hydraulic fracturing, we find ourselves divided once again over this thorny issue. Non-conventional oil and gas reserves that are trapped in deep underground rock formations can be found across Canada. Although the largest of these — the Western Canada Sedimentary Basin — straddles the border between Alberta and British Columbia, there are significant reserves in Quebec, New Brunswick and the Northwest Territories. Consequently, the debate about local impacts of hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, has reached many communities across the country, leading to moratoriums in Quebec and New Brunswick. Recently, the spotlight has shifted to New Brunswick, where lawmakers are considering lifting their year-old ban. In February, the New Brunswick Commission on Hydraulic Fracturing issued a report containing a number of recommendations to the legislature. While the report sidesteps the issue of whether fracking should go ahead, it does call for a significant increase in research. “An expanded research agenda, led by an independent entity, should be a required element should the Government proceed with hydraulic fracturing, because it will help to build community trust,” the report reads, citing a list of risk factors that includes air quality, water quality, wildlife, earthquakes, truck traffic, wastewater disposal and the mental stress of nearby residents. But concerns over hazards that fracking pose to oil and gas workers’ health and safety and the environment are not necessarily equal and the same. While some health and safety issues may overlap with environmental concerns, mitigating workplace hazards and addressing the environmental impact call for different kinds of research and remedies, since what is good for the environment may not necessarily ensure worker safety and vice versa. CHANGING TECHNOLOGY Fracking, which takes place during the completion phase of a well, involves the application of an explosive charge deep underground to create fissures in rock formations, typically shale, to release trapped oil or natural-gas deposits. After the explosive charge has been released, water and chemicals are pumped into the fissures along with sand, which keeps the fissures open in order for oil or gas to flow. For decades, the industry has been using fracking to enhance the production of traditional oil and gas wells. What has gained attention is a far more intensive version, categorized as unconventional oil and gas development, which has been introduced to retrieve
HYDROCARBONS | FEATURE
Fracking releases deposits that may be spread over hundreds of square kilometres. huge, untapped natural-gas deposits. Unlike traditional wells that tap into a single localized deposit, fracking releases deposits that may be spread over hundreds of square kilometres. The technology has opened up reserves so vast that they have, in the past eight years, reduced the United States’ dependency on imported oil significantly. “Completions operations in the last five to seven years have gone through a pretty radical shift in the type of work that they are doing,” says Budd Phillips, regional manager for the WorkSafeBC office in Fort St. John, where there is considerable fracking activity. “The technological advancements — fracturing and other component elements of completions operations — have allowed the oil and gas sector to tap into this gas reserve that, in the past, was not accessible.” Statistically, the most dangerous aspect of oil and gas extraction is getting there; conventional automobile crashes account for a whopping 40 per cent of on-the-job fatalities, according to data compiled by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) in Washington, D.C. “These crashes are occurring on the road between well sites,” says Kyla Retzer, an epidemiologist and researcher who works with NIOSH. “The most common vehicle is pickup trucks. We see workers not wearing seatbelts, speeding-related incidents, fatiguerelated incidents and accidents due to weather conditions. These are things that could be avoided through proper management of travel.” Calgary-based Rick Theriau, health and safety manager for oilfield-services company Halliburton, agrees. “Our highest-risk activity that we do as an industry is transportation.” Engaging in fracturing activities at multiple sites, coupled with the need to move large amounts of material by truck, exacerbates the problem. “We have got multiple wells consolidated to a single site — up to 12 wells per pad — so you might have 50 trucks or more on location hauling materials,” Theriau says. Large trucks moving in confined spaces also present risks. “A lot of people, maybe from different contractors, don’t communicate with each other,” Retzer PIPELINE SPRING 2016 | 17
FEATURE | HYDROCARBONS
“ Our highest-risk activity that we do as an industry is transportation.” suggests. “So we have incidents where vehicles are backing up and running over workers from other companies. We are seeing quite a bit of that.” Another hazard is workers getting struck by equipment. “Any time you bring a lot of people together in a fairly small footprint, which these leases are — activities where you have got big equipment, piping systems — you also have the risk of people being struck by things,” Phillips says. In view of the high pressures involved in modern fracks, workplace incidents on well sites tend to be more catastrophic, Phillips cautions. “When you have a piece of pipe that is under such high pressure, and it either ruptures or a fitting breaks, you get exponential pressures that will be released.” That, he says, can result in a worker getting hit by a flying pipe, projectile or a high-pressure blast of water or chemicals.
18 | SPRING 2016 PIPELINE
TOXIC EXPOSURE Sand is not ordinarily considered a dangerous substance, but its airborne dust can be fatal when inhaled for prolonged periods. The hazard has a long history with stoneworkers, concrete workers and those who engage in sandblasting. In a 2013 peer-reviewed study sponsored by NIOSH, conducted with the participation of several fracking operators, Eric Esswein, an industrial hygienist with NIOSH, and several other authors determined that workers on tested jobsites had risks for exposures to dangerous concentrations of respirable crystallinesilica dust. Fracking sites have huge sand-handling operations that can create massive clouds of silica dust. When the dust is inhaled, tiny airborne quartz particles, known as respirable crystalline silica, can enter the gasexchange regions of a worker’s lungs. The result of prolonged exposure is silicosis, a crippling respiratory disease that develops over years and can prove fatal in advanced stages. The study recommends taking preventive measures that include handling techniques to reduce the formation of dust clouds, setting limits to exposure time and using respirators. Another common inhalation risk comes from hydrogen-sulfide gas, or sour gas, which occurs naturally in oil and gas wells when bacteria enter a well. Bactericides are used in fracking fluids to prevent that from occurring. Hydrogen sulphide can be very difficult to control when it becomes a problem. Inhalation risks aside, there are also fluids and vapours released during flowback. Once a well has been fracked and its production phase has begun, 10 per cent or more of the fluid that was pumped into the well returns to the surface over the course of a few weeks. Consequently, thousands of litres of toxic fluids have to be managed continuously over that period. Flowback tanks in which fluids are stored, awaiting processing or disposal, is a particularly dangerous area, as workers can be exposed to evaporated benzene gas, which the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say causes harmful effects on the bone marrow and can decrease red blood cells, leading to anemia. In a 2014 peer-reviewed study conducted by NIOSH, Esswein and his team determined that some workers had exposures to benzene during flowback operations that exceeded the NIOSH Recommended Exposure Limit of 0.1 parts per million as a timeweighted average. Workers who manually gauged levels of process fluids in flowback tanks were determined to have greater risks for benzene exposures compared to workers who did not gauge tanks. With thousands of gallons of toxic fracturing fluids being processed or transported, there is also the potential for spills to occur, resulting in direct contact with workers. The study recommends adopting preventive measures, such as using an alternative gaug-
HYDROCARBONS | FEATURE
ing scheme, providing training, arranging tents and other convening areas to keep workers farther away from flowback fluid tanks, and using respirators and skin protection. Esswein reveals that the NIOSH field research is ongoing and that the agency continues to do exposure assessments to gain a more comprehensive understanding of the hydrocarbon exposure risks. “Last year, we conducted quite a few week-long field studies,” he says. “So our work now will involve amalgamating that data to get some aggregate results. We will be looking at various hydrocarbons, including other hazards like explosiveness and oxygen depletion. This will be supplemented with the use of infrared cameras to visualize hydrocarbon plumes.” MANAGING RISKS Keeping safety practices up to date with modern fracking technology has been a major focus of Enform, a non-profit safety association representing Canada’s oil and gas sector. Enform also collaborates with NIOSH and partners with Petroleum Services Association of Canada (PSAC), which has published a Hydraulic Fracturing Code of Conduct endorsed by their major members, including Halliburton. The Code includes general guidelines for fracturing-fluid disclosure, third-party audits, reporting of incidents and health and safety training. While the hazards that are present in modern,
high-intensity fracking sites are numerous and potentially serious, few are unique to fracking sites. For example, refinery employees routinely work in proximity to toxic and flammable substances, fumes, high temperatures, high pressures and moving equipment. Consequently, fracking operators are beginning to employ safety methods developed in the refinery sector. Enform’s chief executive officer Cameron MacGillivary says there has been a strong focus on bringing process safety, which entails a disciplined, systematic approach to multiple risks, to well sites. “This is proactive for upstream industry,” MacGillivary says. “It comes out of the refining industry, which has had complex operations for a long time. As technologies have advanced in the upstream industry, process safety has become more important to what we do. We have a number of workshops and guide-
“Process safety has become more important to what we do.” PIPELINE SPRING 2016 | 19
FEATURE | HYDROCARBONS lines for process safety focused on how to get started.” An example is a directive document entitled IRP24: Fracture Stimulation: An Industry Recommended Practice for the Canadian Oil and Gas Industry, developed through the Drilling and Completions Committee. The document, which is currently a draft, outlines best practices for well control and safety specific to fracturing operations. In conjunction with that, Enform is posting a hazard register that allows companies to share best practices and learn from incidents and near-misses. Process safety looks at three levels of mitigation. The most immediate is personal safety protection, such as the use of gloves or respirators, followed by systems safety, which involves the specification of rules and operating procedures that keep workers safe. Finally, there are engineering controls, which eliminate threats by changing the operations, or installing physical barriers to isolate workers from the threat. For instance, engineering controls that reduce or eliminate situations in which workers come in contact with silica dust may involve limiting the vertical drop of sand moving from a conveyor into a hopper, covering bins to prevent wind from creating dust clouds, moving sand on wider conveyor belts so that they carry the required volume at a slower belt speed, wet-
TAPPING THE EARTH
Fracking is taking place on a much larger scale than before. A single hole in the ground, often as deep as 5,000 metres, can lead to dozens of horizontally-drilled branch wells, with each of these being up to two kilometres long. In multi-stage fracturing, fracking explosions take place all along these tunnels, meaning that work on a single jobsite can generate hundreds of fracking explosions. Retrieving natural gas through this intense drilling technique has brought many changes to well sites, some of which are as follows: • Vast quantities of water, sand and chemicals are required in modern fracking operations. While a frack in a conventional well might have required 100,000 litres of water, a modern well could pump millions of litres into the ground, combined with a proportional amount of chemicals and as much as 2,000 tonnes of sand. • Much of the fluid that is pumped into the well eventually returns to the surface. The resulting flowback fluids include acids, anti-corrosives, bactericides and lubricants used to make water slide more efficiently in pipes. Some of these chemicals are highly toxic, and some have been introduced in the past few years. • Extremely high pressures are applied to the wells to force the fluids and sand into the fissures. Frackers use diesel locomotive engines to generate pressure that are 9,000 pounds per square inch and more, whereas previous fracking typically involved 3,000 pounds per square inch. • The complexity of jobsite activity has increased dramatically. Monitoring the deep underground processes relies on high-tech monitoring equipment and modelling. As well, fracking sites involve a relatively large number of workers — sometimes more than 100 — often undertaking a variety of dangerous tasks with heavy equipment. 20 | SPRING 2016 PIPELINE
ting the ground and using dust suppressants, ventilation systems and wind barriers. “Ideally, you want to engineer out any of those hazards,” Theriau explains. “But that may not be possible at a given point in time, so you also need to provide some personal protective equipment.” That said, there are constraints to the use of personal protective equipment. Prolonged exposure may require a full-face respirator, and even then, there may be exposure time limits of up to eight hours. Enform has launched an education campaign to deal with the silica-dust problem, which incorporates data and recommendations from the NIOSH study. They have also been helping companies address the benzene inhalation problem. “I am impressed with Enform’s health and safety resource, and some of the Canadian companies we have interacted with on the tank-gauging issue,” Retzer says, “because they have implemented alternative methods for gauging.” The biggest challenge is the handling of concurrent operations and the associated risks on a multi-well pad that is a good size, but still limited for space. “When you get onto some locations nowadays where we have a multi-well pad-type operation going on, you might see two or three drilling rigs working the one location and maybe a coil tubing rig drilling surface holes possibly, along with a big frack spread on location fracturing a well — all of this happening concurrently,” says Mark Salkeld, president of PSAC. “You could easily be dealing with upwards of 50 people or more on location at the same time. So it is not just the frack crews — everybody on location has to be site-aware, and the contractors coming on the location have to have safety plans and all of the appropriate safety gear,” he adds. PROCESS SAFETY For decades, Halliburton has used the Lean Six Sigma approach to handle these complex risk scenarios. The approach regards safety threats as process defects and includes a disciplined methodology for detecting and eliminating them. The core of this approach is continuous improvement through constant learning. “We execute against a plan by managing the critical path and then continuously improve on that by gathering and analyzing feedback and feeding our learning back into the planning cycle,” Theriau explains. “That is how we have gotten more efficient at managing and controlling hazards.” Efficiency and safety go hand in hand when improving processes. “An inefficient operation tends to be an unsafe and an environmentally hazardous location, which can also lead to some other risks,” Theriau says, adding that the key is working with all variables systematically. “I look at five aspects,” he notes, citing people,
HYDROCARBONS | FEATURE equipment, material, environment and the process. “If you can actively manage those five pieces and integrate those together in your end-to-end process, you are addressing the process safety piece, and you are also making sure that you can be as efficient as possible.” MacGillivary notes that the absence of this kind of discipline was deemed a key contributor to the 2010 BP Deepwater Horizon disaster in the Gulf of Mexico. “One of the things the commission cited was a lack of focus on process safety and a lack of a collaborative approach by the industry towards advancing safety.” Phillips reveals that he has seen a dramatic change in the way contractors handle these issues. “Today’s fracking operations have become very sophisticated,” he notes. “They have detailed safety plans for what they are doing and operational plans that are meshed together. Lots of good communication, and they make sure that there is a sequence of operations when they are under pressure, so that people are kept out of the hazard zones.” THE VITAL LINK No safety program, regardless of how sophisticated, can succeed unless workers and managers develop solid habits of compliance. In any industry, a weak safety culture can neutralize the positive effects of training, rules, safety equipment and other interventions. As long as workers travel between well sites in pickup trucks, fatalities will continue. “Health and safety policies may be completely ignored in the field if safety culture is not there,” Retzer cautions, “so having a good safety culture is essential.” She was surprised, for example, that many workers are still manually gauging production and flowback tanks without protection. “We have done a lot of reports to let people know about that hazard, but I hear from workers that there is still a lack of awareness,” she says. “I worry about when the next death is going to occur.” One of the disturbing statistics gathered by NIOSH is the huge disparity in safety records between small and large oil and gas companies. “There are much higher fatality rates among smaller companies,” Retzer notes. “If you look at companies with 20 workers or less, the fatality rate is more than twice that of large companies, which we define as more than 100 employees. Small drilling contractors have fatality rates more than seven times the oil and gas industry rates as a whole. This is largely due to a lack of resources, and that problem permeates every industry.”
The new environment and increased operational risks in the sector call for many workers — some with decades of experience — to change their ways. But this does not happen overnight. Theriau says the biggest issue that Halliburton faces is getting outside workers to accept the company’s new methods. “I can honestly say that our highest risk that we have within our company is bringing in workers who have worked for other companies and getting them indoctrinated to our way of thinking,” Theriau reveals. “It takes a while to get people to understand that.” While fracking has many inherent risks, Phillips believes that these risks can be managed with proper planning and investment of resources. “Don’t fall into the temptation ever of taking shortcuts, because if you do and something goes wrong, it tends to go badly wrong very quickly.” PL Jacob Stoller is a writer in Toronto. Follow us on Twitter @PipelineOHS PIPELINE SPRING 2016 | 21
FEATURE | NOISE-INDUCED HEARING LOSS
SOUND ADVICE By Jean Lian
C
ome July 1, a new noise regulation under Ontario’s Occupational Health and Safety Act (OHSA) to beef up worker protection against noise-induced hearing loss (NIHL) will come into effect. The new regulation replaces and extends the noise-protection requirements set out in the regulations for Industrial Establishments, Mines and Mining Plants and Oil and Gas — Offshore under the OHSA. New workplaces covered by this regulation include construction projects, healthcare facilities, schools, farming operations, fire services, police services and amusement parks. According to a notice issued last December by Ontario’s Ministry of Labour, NIHL is “a leading cause of occupational disease for Ontario workers.” But Ontario is not the only province that has tightened regulations surrounding noise exposure across industries. Noise-induced hearing loss also came under the spotlight in British Columbia when a bulletin posted on WorkSafeBC’s website on January 25 raised alarm bells over the high incidence of the condition among workers in the province’s upstream oil and gas and pipeline-construction industries. Results from a series of hearing tests that WorkSafeBC conducted in 2014 indicate that 33 per cent of the tested workers showed signs of NIHL, compared to the 16 per cent average for workers in noisy industries. More than half of them were 35 years old or younger, which demonstrates that hearing loss is not simply an effect of aging. “This is a concern. The hearing-test results in oil and gas for noise-related hearing loss are more than double compared to other industries with hazardous 22 | SPRING 2016 PIPELINE
noise levels,” says Budd Phillips, regional prevention manager with WorkSafeBC in Fort St. John. The majority of the nearly 37 per cent of workers in the oil and gas drilling industry who showed signs of hearing loss reported that they wore hearing protection. This raises the disturbing implication that the auditory protection used may not be effective, workers might be removing their protective devices or noise levels in the work environment are so high that hearing protectors do not provide sufficient protection. Young workers in the oil- or gas-fieldservice industry were particularly vulnerable: 17 per cent of the 35-and-under group said they did not use hearing protection, and that figure climbs to 27 per cent for the under-21 group. The Occupational Health and Safety Regulation says employers are required to provide hearing-loss prevention programs, monitor noise levels and conduct annual hearing tests for employees who are exposed to hazardous noise. WorkSafeBC’s data indicate that only 15 per cent of workers in oil and gas and pipeline construction were tested in 2014. “This is a call to action for employers in hazardous-noise industries to ensure their workers have access to hearing-loss prevention programs and annual testing, as well as vigilant monitoring to determine where and when the highest levels of noise exposure are occurring and take appropriate engineering control measures to reduce exposures,” Phillips says. HEAR, HEAR So why do oil and gas workers in British Columbia have a high incidence of NIHL? “People in oil and gas work for much
longer periods,” says Ponnachan Joseph, a registered occupational hygienist with Industrial Safety International Inc. in Calgary. Twelve-hour shifts are normal, and workers often work 10 straight days due to remote worksites. The lack of visibility of NIHL is another factor. “You don’t see blood coming from the ears or anything like that,” Joseph says. Although hearing protectors are almost always available on a worksite, “they don’t give that much priority to hearing protection, because it is not an acute issue,” unlike immediate threats like hydrogen sulphide or falling objects. “The issue of hearing loss is certainly serious, but I think there is a general lack of awareness on the severity of the occupational illness,” suggests David Jarrell, managing director of Consolidare Consulting International in Calgary. As hearing loss happens over time and results from chronic exposure, “it is not perceived as being that high-risk.” In a presentation on reducing hearing loss in the oilfield, San Diego-based Brad Witt, director of hearing conservation with Howard Leight by Honeywell Industrial Safety, points out that NIHL is particularly insidious, because it occurs without pain, visible signs of trauma or physical abnormalities. Hearing loss is hard to detect in the early stages, and there are wide individual variations of susceptibility to NIHL. On the behavioural front, workers operating in an environment where high hazards abound are also more likely to remove hearing-protection devices to facilitate communication. “Many workers will avoid using earplugs or earmuffs with the mistaken belief that it prevents them from hearing more life-threatening hazards,” Witt says.
NOISE-INDUCED HERAING LOSS | FEATURE According to Dan Clarke, president of Clarke Consultants in Edmonton, the industry has historically relied on the use of personal protective equipment (PPE) rather than on engineering controls to reduce noise exposure. “The result has been some the nosiest work environments that I have ever surveyed. It is fairly common to see noise levels exceed 110 dBA on some equipment.” At these levels, a worker needs to wear both well-fitted earplugs and earmuffs to get adequate protection. But many find wearing one or the other uncomfortable, and getting them to wear both at the same time can be a challenge. “It is rare to find any areas outside of the dog house on a drilling rig that are under 85 dBA. Workers in these environments need to wear hearing protection 100 per cent of the time when they work, and they don’t like to do that,” Clarke says. A dog house is a small enclosure on the rig floor used as an office for the driller or as a storehouse for small objects. Relying almost entirely on PPE requires workers to be educated in depth and demands a high degree of compliance monitoring by supervisors. While hearing protectors generally do well in laboratory tests, in the real world, “workers often do not know how to insert the plug correctly or would prefer to wear them in a more comfortable fashion — that is, on a string around their neck,” Clarke notes. Jarrell says there is a good reason why PPE is often considered the last line of defence. “All PPE has limitations, and I believe the work conditions exceed the capability of the earplugs and muffs to adequately protect.” Diesel engines are the primary source of noise in the oil and gas sector, according to Art Jarvis, executive director of Energy Services BC in Fort St. John. Sound pressure level is measured in decibels, while the frequency of engine rotations is expressed in revolutions per minute (rpm). Engine noise at different RPM produces a different decibel count. There is also the high-pitched noise of “steel on steel”, such as rotating dozer tracks, the hammering of pile drivers and the droning sounds of flow through piping in a plant situation. “All these produce many different tones, pitches and decibel levels,” Jarvis adds.
“ YOU DON’T SEE BLOOD COMING FROM THE EARS OR ANYTHING LIKE THAT.” POISON TO THE EARS In addition to the high levels of noise, oil and gas workers are also at risk of ototoxic chemical exposure, or ear poisoning. Environmental chemicals that are ototoxic include mercury, carbon disulfide, toluene, styrene, xylene, hexane and trichloroethylene. For instance, mercury is a natural component of oil and gas and may be present in high concentrations in some formations. Job tasks that carry an exposure risk to mercury in gas-processing facilities include vessel cleaning, welding, grinding, polishing, pipefitting and hydro-excavating. Implementing engineering controls is complicated by the temporary nature of work locations typical in the industry, Joseph says. The variability of job tasks undertaken in the sector and the use of mobile equipment in many upstream operations in outdoor environments also make it hard to control work conditions. “Facilities are easier to apply engineering controls. Mobile equipment and tools typically get overlooked, and that is what I think contributes to excessive noise,” Jarrell suggests. And it always boils down to cost. “It is easier and more convenient to fall back on the use of hearing protection.” Clarke stresses the importance of finding out which areas of their rigs contribute most to noise exposure and to engineer that out as far as possible. “A three-dB reduction is a 50 per cent reduction in noise energy and risk to worker hearing,” he says. Selecting the appropriate muffler for a rig engine will often result in a five- to 10-dBA reduction in noise levels near this equipment. “If companies implement a fully compliant hearing-conservation program, I think we would see a dramatic reduction in the number of noise-inducedhearing-loss cases.” BEYOND LIMITS The occupational exposure limit for noise in the oil and gas sector is the same across industries. According to Clarke, most Canadian provinces, with the exception of Quebec and federally-regulated employers, have adopted the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygiene
exposure limits, which stipulate that the daily energy averaged sound level (Lex) does not exceed 85 dBA. Regulatory requirements state that employers must do baseline noise measurements any time when Lex levels exceed 85 dBA and after any changes in equipment or processes. In practice, this means that all operating drilling rigs will require some level of noise monitoring. “Many rig operators have done some baseline monitoring, but probably not to the extent required by regulations. Most have done some spot-noise measurements, but many have not done the personal dosimetry required or done retesting after changing equipment and processes,” Clarke says. Once it has been established that workers are exposed to Lex levels greater than 85 dBA, which is likely in the case for rigs, provincial regulations require employers to establish hearing-conservation programs. “While a number of employers have done this work, many are unaware of the regulatory requirements. As a result, many workers don’t get much training on the hazards of noise exposure and the proper use of personal hearing protectors,” Clarke adds. Jarrell points to inadequate hazard assessment. “People may recognize there is noise present, but they couldn’t quantify it. They might not be aware of thresholds where additional protections are required,” he notes. For Joseph, education is key. As health issues are rarely addressed in safety-program audits, he recommends incorporating oh&s issues into program management and certifications like the Certificate of Recognition. Other measures include training safety coordinators on workplace health issues and ensuring that independent contractors conduct hearing tests. “WorkSafeBC has a wealth of knowledge on occupational illnesses,” Joseph says. “[They] should be able to bring in some experts and provide training in remote locations. That might help.” PL Jean Lian is editor of Pipeline Magazine. Follow us on Twitter @PipelineOHS PIPELINE SPRING 2016 | 23
PRODUCTS | GAS DETECTION
IT’S A
GAS B By Jeff Cottrill
reathing clean air is a necessity for human life, but there are many jobs in which workers risk inhaling dangerous gases or impurities. This is particularly true of work in confined spaces. Gas-detection or instrumentation devices that test the air quality of workspaces and alert workers to any unseen dangers that may be present prevent them from being canaries in a coal mine. The scope of occupations that uses some kind of instrumentation device is broader than one might think, according to Bob Henderson, president of Good for Gas Instrumentation (GfG), an international manufacturer of gas-detection products based in Ann Arbor, Michigan. “It is an extremely large and horizontal group,” Henderson says, citing those who work in traditional oil and gas, the petrochemical industry, municipalities, heavyindustry power generation, mining, fire services, hazmat, emergency response and military programs. “It is just hard to find almost any category of employed individual who does not have the opportunity occasionally to need or use gas detection.”
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Gas hazards are not limited to confined spaces.
Gas hazards are not limited to confined spaces, he stresses. For example, firefighters and other first responders may attend fuel spills, traffic accidents, train derailments and other outdoor accidents that potentially release hazardous gases or vapours, while hazmat workers are constantly at risk even in open spaces. “At a refinery, every person onsite generally is going to have a gas detector or multiple gas detectors, because anywhere onsite is subject to certain hazards,” Henderson adds. “You don’t have to be in a confined space.”
MANY MAKES Although gas-detection devices come in different forms — most commonly, portable or wearable — they work on the same basic principle. A device contains at least one sensor designed to react to a specific type of gas. A single-sensor monitor can detect one specific gas, while others are built with multiple sensors for environments or spaces where multiple gas hazards may be present. Dräger Safety Canada Ltd, which offers a variety of safety products in Mississauga, Ontario, carries a wide range of gas monitors. National accounts manager Manish Gupta says that Dräger customers usually ask for detectors that identify one or more of four basic types of gases: lower explosive limit (LEL) gases, oxygen (O), carbon monoxide (CO) and hydrogen sulfide (H2S). “Generally, most gas monitors comprise those four sensors,” Gupta says. “There are always exceptions, of course, but the majority includes those.” Workers tend to carry these basic monitors in their shirt pockets or hook them onto their belts, so that they remain handy and can be readily deployed to
GAS DETECTION | PRODUCTS measure levels of gases in the immediate environment. In some cases, detectors can be custom-built for certain gases. “One of the trademarks of our product line in particular is that we are very flexible on the type of sensors that we can put into an instrument,” says Dave Wagner, director of applications engineering and product knowledge with Industrial Scientific Corporation in Pittsburgh. The company manufactures portable singlegas and multi-gas instruments for a range of applications. Although four-gas instruments make up the depth of the company’s line, many variations are available. “We can vary those sensors quite a bit and put in a sensor for sulphur dioxide, or we can put in a sensor for maybe chlorine or nitrogen dioxide, hydrogen cyanide, a variety of other gases, or we can put in some other more specialty sensors,” Wagner explains. An employer can even request infrared sensors, which can detect more specific types of combustible gases or carbon dioxide, he adds. Another company that offers infrared gas sensors is Gas Clip Technologies, headquartered in Cedar Hill, Texas. According to service manager Jeremy Majors, the company carries monitors with infrared LEL sensors that run for as long as 60 days. “That is 60 days continuous, without having to be recharged,” he stresses, as opposed to competitor products that have to be recharged roughly after 12 to 18 hours. The obvious advantage to using monitors that run longer is that they can last for an entire shift. An employee who has to work a 24-hour shift will require two monitors just to get through one shift, Majors cites by way of example. “Whereas, say, you have our monitor that will run for 60 days — you don’t have to worry about that,” he says. Instruments that are equipped with photo-ionization detectors have also become more common in recent years, Henderson observes. “And you see increasing numbers of substance-specific electrochemical toxic sensors and a few broad-range toxic sensors that are also available for use in multi-sensor and single-sensor instruments.” Before an employer decides what type and brand of gas monitors to purchase, it is necessary to conduct a risk assessment
Gas-detection products on the market include Honeywell’s ConneXt Pack wireless system (top), handheld portable instruments from GfG (bottom right) and Gas Clip’s four-gas detectors (bottom left).
of the work environment to determine the atmospheric hazards to which workers may be exposed at any given time. “That is your number-one obligation,” Henderson says. “And you have an obligation to make sure that you do not exceed the toxic-exposure limits, whatever they are in the province.” The next step is to determine what types of devices detect these hazards, and that can vary depending on the job or industry. In most confined spaces, the four basic gases (LEL, O, CO and H2S) are the minimal concerns, but many might also present the risk of volatile organic chemicals and other contaminants, which would require a device outfitted with extra sensors, Henderson explains. “If diesel exhaust is around, then you probably have nitrogen oxides to consider,” he notes. “So you might include an NO2 sensor, or if it is a foundry or a place where fuels are also being burned, perhaps it is an SO2.” In addition, hydrogen, ozone and ammonia tend to be major issues at many power-generating stations, depending on what kind of power the plant is producing. “In many cases,” Henderson adds, “the easiest way to deal with a specific hazard is by means of a substance-specific
electrochemical sensor, because they don’t take much power, they are compact and they lend themselves to a small, easily used instrument.” According to Majors, ease of use is an important factor to consider when shopping around for gas monitors, and that can mean different things — from durability and portability to simplicity of operation. For example, he cites a detector with one-button operation as an example of a less complicated product. “Would you want something that you have to go in and change, go through a menu and change settings, or would you rather have something that you can just turn on and it does what it needs to do?” Majors asks. With a simpler product, “the employer can have his employees out doing their job, instead of worrying about their gas monitor.” READY TO USE In Canada, the CSA Group standard C22.2 No. 152-M1984 (R2011), or Combustible Gas Detection Instruments, provides recommended practices for construction, performance and testing of gas monitors. To keep a detection device in working condition after purchase, CSA recommends that the worker perform a “bump check” or “bump test” before each use. A bump test exposes each sensor of a gas-detection device to a specific, limited concentration of the appropriate gas. If the device’s reading is within an acceptable range from the actual amount of gas provided, the sensor is in good working condition. Some employers find it wise to perform due diligence by having employees keep records of their bump tests. Gupta points out that technological advances have made performing bump checks an easy process for some workers in recent years. “You now have bump-test stations, where you literally just put the device in the bump-test station and it does everything for you,” he explains. “You don’t have to press any buttons, you don’t have to check any settings.” The station gives the user an “OK” indication to show that the device has passed the check. “It is now so simple.” Even after a successful bump check, workers must remain cautious when entering some confined spaces where certain pre-testing procedures may be PIPELINE SPRING 2016 | 25
PRODUCTS | GAS DETECTION MISCONCEPTIONS OF DETECTIONS “There is more to gas detection than just buying the gas detector,” says William Ball, Calgary-based technical specialist for portable gas detection with Honeywell Safety Products. Ball notes that many employers who purchase gas-detection devices have strong misconceptions about how they work. For example, some customers believe that a user can simply break the device out of the box and put it to work right away, while others expect them to continue working accurately for a long time, without ever needing a bump test or calibration. One common misunderstanding that Ball occasionally encounters is the notion that gas-detection products can work from a long distance away. “I often get questions about what is the detection range, and they are not talking about the sensor range from zero to 100 VPN,” he explains. “They want to know, can it see 10 feet or 20 feet away? And no, it doesn’t. Unless you hook tubing up to it.” The sensors on a device work on the principle of diffusion. Gas molecules diffuse into the sensors, and this can happen only at the spot where the device is located. “So it can’t detect something 50 feet away or 30 feet away,” Ball says. “It is detecting where the gas detector is.” A number of users are also unaware that gases can stratify, meaning that gases with higher mass density tend to settle lower while those with lighter molecular weights rise, similar to the way heavier objects sink in water while lighter ones float. This is particularly important in confined spaces. “It is very important to sample at different levels within that confined space, to make sure the heavier-thanair gas isn’t lying low,” Ball says, “or that you have missed anything.” It is also vital to allow sufficient time for the sensors to detect and respond to all of the gases that might be present in a confined space. If the user works too quickly, he or she risks missing hazards, which Ball says is a common mistake. “You want to make sure you have good confined-space entry protocols.” 26 | SPRING 2016 PIPELINE
required. Manhole entrances are one such example. “Before you lift the manhole cover,” Gupta explains, “pop open the cover a little bit, test the gas under the cover and then go in, because you don’t want a cloud of the contaminants sitting under the cover, and as soon as you open it, you suddenly inhale a cloud of gas.” It is vital to be aware of how suddenly the atmosphere can change once workers are already in the space. “As you work, you are changing how the air flows and the gas flows within that area, and so it can change from safe to unsafe very quickly,” Gupta adds. In addition to bump tests, gas monitors must also undergo regular calibration to ensure accurate operation. Industrial Scientific Corporation advises its customers to calibrate their gas-detection devices monthly, as opposed to many other manufacturers who recommend semi-annual or quarterly calibration. Majors recommends doing a bump test after each time a monitor has been dropped or knocked around, to verify that the sensors are still operating properly. Keeping the sensors clean and clear is also important. “You want to make sure it is not caked with mud, dirt, sand, grit, those types of things,” he advises. “If they are dirty, then you’d want to replace the sensor filters themselves.” The shelf lives of sensors vary, and although they can be replaced easily once damaged, there may come a point when it is more feasible and cost-effective to replace the entire gas monitor, Majors advises. “The cost of replacing sensors may not warrant replacing the sensor. It may warrant purchasing a new monitor with a full warranty on it,” he says. “At the end of two years, do you send your cell phone in to get refurbished or fixed up, or do you just buy a new cell phone?” UP AND COMING Honeywell Safety Products covers a large share of the gas-detection market in Canada, from basic single-gas and four-gas monitors to more complex products. One recent development that has become more prominent in gas detection and instrumentation is wireless technology, according to Calgarybased William Ball, Honeywell’s technical specialist for portable gas detection. “In every confined-space entry, you have to have an attendant present who is
keeping his eye on what is going on in a confined space while people are occupying it,” Ball says. Today, an attendant can stand outside of the confined space and use a wireless device that can pick up information from all of the gas detectors worn by the people in the space. “As an attendant, he can determine whether somebody is in trouble from being outside.” The advantage of this system is that the attendant can simultaneously monitor all the areas where workers are located. In the past, an attendant must conduct a preexamination of the atmosphere in the space, determine whether it is safe and maintain verbal contact with the workers in the space while standing outside. “But what the attendant sees at one spot may not be what somebody else who is working in a confined space would see at another location within the space,” Ball illustrates. The wireless method today allows the attendant to cover multiple locations. “He can see a number of gas detectors on one device.” Employers who need to obtain gas samples from remote locations can also buy gas detectors with built-in pumps and connected tubing as well, he adds. It is worth noting that the more complex and technologically advanced a gas detector is, the more expensive it is likely to be. Ball estimates that a simple four-gas or single-sensor detection device could cost an employer about $500, but additional features and powers will jack up the price, sometimes to as high as $2,500. Among product functions that can add cost are additional sensors, wireless capability and built-in radios. “Some detectors even have GPS capability as well,” Ball notes. Regardless of price, Majors believes that technical advances in gas detectors will continue to develop and expand the functions or make the instruments more user-friendly. “With the technology we have today, we are able to do more, and I think people just expect that in every aspect of their life,” he says. “I think that they want their gas monitors to be able to be easier to maintain, easier to use and run longer.” PL Jeff Cottrill is editor of Canadian Occupational Health and Safety News. Follow us on Twitter @PipelineOHS
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PRODUCTS | PROTECTIVE CLOTHING
DONNING FOR DANGER By Jeff Cottrill
M
any workers — think police officers, airline attendants and fast-food employees — wear uniforms or other distinct clothing to indicate their professions. Self-identification aside, protection is another reason for donning work clothing. Protective apparel is a broad category that encompasses fire-resistant (FR) gear and garments, as well as clothing that shields workers from the elements. It also comes in a variety of forms, including frocks, jackets, overalls, gowns, laboratory coats and even high-visibility apparel. The two primary markets for protective work clothing in Canada are businesses that need garments to protect against chemicals, hazardous materials, dust and dirt, and those in sectors requiring FR gear, according to Randy Hillmer, national sales manager with Lakeland Canada, a protective-clothing manufacturer based in Brantford, Ontario. “Firefighting clothing is kind of the most technically advanced, if you will, of protective apparel,” says Hillmer, whose firm specializes in disposable clothing and garments protecting against chemicals, heat and fire. He adds that employers should consider all the hazards in an environment before deciding what types and brands of protective clothing to acquire. “They are going to fall into one of those classes where it is going to be a
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chemical hazard, or it is going to be a flame hazard, electrical hazard,” he says. “They really need to consider clothing the same way you would consider respiratory protection or glove protection.” The specific protective clothing that an employer looks for depends a lot on industry needs, according to Mark Saner, a technical manager with Workrite, which manufactures FR gear in Oxnard, California. “The oil and gas industry wears a lot of coveralls, whether they be just single-air coveralls or insulated coveralls, bib overalls. They are also going to wear a lot of outerwear, jackets and parkas and sweatshirts and those kinds of things, just because they are outdoors all the time,” he says. Electrical workers also need basic protective gear, often shirts and denim jackets, Saner adds, while research laboratories and similar environments where workers deal with chemicals and other caustic materials tend to wear traditional laboratory coats. UNDER COVERS According to the Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety (CCOHS) in Hamilton, Ontario, the selection of materials and fabrics for protective clothing is just as diverse. A multilayer laminate of polyethylene and ethylene-vinyl alcohol can protect a worker against many chemical exposures, while Nomex, an
aromatic-polyamide (aramid) fibre, is a common choice for resisting high temperatures and industrial chemicals, for example. Tychem is a tear- and punctureresistant material, while Kevlar is another aramid fibre known for its protective strength against cuts, heat, flying fragments and even bullets. Chemical-protective clothing often contains polymer or plastic film that acts as a barrier against specific or families of chemicals, Hillmer notes. “Certain plastics are going to be better for organic acids or inorganic acids, or hydrocarbons.” The primary difference between chemical-protective clothing and standard FR gear is that the former is made of inherently fire-retardant material, explains Lyse Moreau, owner and president of International Sew Right in Niagara Falls, Ontario. “It has not been treated onto the fabric; it is right into the thread of the garment,” she says about anti-chemical gear, which is made of fabric that is woven, dyed and dipped in solution that is absorbed into the fabric, before it is put through a dryer process. Conducting a hazard assessment is the first step in determining what protection is needed. Employers must evaluate where people are working, the various hazards they might be exposed to and the potential degree of exposure, and all of that determines what type of garments could be appropriate, Saner advises.
PROTECTIVE CLOTHING | PRODUCTS “If you are looking at electrical hazards, electrical workers might be in a variety of different types of tasks that they have to perform with energized equipment.” The garment and its make may vary depending on the level of risk, such as the number of calories of electricity, he adds. In the United States, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration requires employers to conduct hazard assessments before donning workers with the necessary protection. In Moreau’s experience, firms here in Canada tend to go by their own guidelines. “Their health and safety area will have policies and standards that they have to adhere to,” she says, adding that her company occasionally receives detailed standard policies from clients who need a certain kind of protective gear. “And they will send me printouts of what the spec sheets are, and it can be up to 50 pages long,” Moreau reports. “They will specify that they want the surging to be done with the same type of thread, or that the stitches have to be so many per inch. And we have all the computerized sewing machines to do that here.” In some cases, those who operate in environments containing more than one hazard, such as a worker who handles chemicals, may also need FR protection from flash fires, arc flashes or steam. Employers in these situations may be looking for a type of protective clothing that is non-permeable, meaning that it does not allow any steam, chemicals or flashes to get under the clothing and onto the skin. The problem with this, Saner points out, is that standard protective garments are designed to be breathable rather than completely non-permeable. For example, employees working with hazardous chemicals may not need nonpermeable gear required in a hazmat setting; a lab coat that is permeable to some degree would provide sufficient protection. “So there are degrees of apparel that might be appropriate,” Saner says. LAYERS, LAYERS Another way to use protective work clothing to guard against a variety of hazards is a process known as “layered” clothing, says Moreau, who lists several categories of layering that are standard in the industry. “Category one, you can get away with
wearing a shirt and pants. When you get into category two, and you are moving up higher, you have to get into what we call the layering effect,” Moreau says. “You have your garments that you were issued in the past, but then you will have your undergarments, long T-shirt, long underwear.” The higher categories, three and four, involve insulated clothing, such as those used for cold weather, she adds. International Sew Right produces protective clothing of all kinds, including FR gear, high-visibility clothing and garments protecting from extreme temperatures. But its specialty is custom-designing protective work clothing according to employer requests, which means that the company sometimes needs to think outside the box — or outside the categories — when manufacturing original garments, especially when shielding workers from heat stress. “We will get companies that will say, ‘I need to have something specifically
HEAT OF THE MOMENT Heat stress is an important issue to consider with protective clothing, especially for firefighting and chemical-protective apparel, Hillmer points out. The plastic and polymer film in anti-chemical garments tends to be part of the problem. “If you have a serious chemical hazard, then heat stress can become an issue, because chemical-protective clothing does not offer any kind of breathability,” he cautions. Saner says that a mix of air permeability and moisture management, or the ability to absorb sweat rapidly, in a fabric is the best way to relieve heat stress. “You want fabrics that have high degrees of air permeability, so you get a lot of airflow that can go in and out, allow the heat out,” he explains. “You have some that will absorb moisture well, but they don’t dry very fast, and then you have some that will both absorb and dry quickly, and that is the ideal situation.” But workers can also manage heat
designed,’” Moreau says. “Then they want ventilations put in a certain area, so that the flow of heat that is occurring inside the coat has a way of getting out, and we will design it whichever way they want.” Mount Vernon FR, a Trion, Georgiabased company that produces flame-resistant fabrics and other components for FR clothing, has some prototypes underway for protection against multiple hazards including flash fires, heat and hot fluids, according to Carolyn Black, the company’s FR technical specialist. Black’s position involves promoting Mount Vernon’s products in Canada. “You could select a fabric,” she explains, “that is component-certified to the two flash-fire standards as well as having an arc rating, and then these fabrics can be used in a welder’s situation.” This would be especially useful as welders are very vulnerable to burns from heat, she adds. “There is still some protection given on some arc fabrics for that hazard.”
stress through simple rest and rehydration — if that is an option on the job — regardless of the thickness or breathability of the clothing worn. Saner has conducted research on how protective clothing relates to heat stress and found that the garments have relatively little effect on the latter if they are breathable. “Rest breaks, and getting out of the sun and drinking water — a lot of fluids — are probably more important than what they are wearing,” he says. Pricing is determined by the make of the garment, according to Moreau. “When you get into a fabric that is 100 per cent cotton, compared to one that is fire-retardant, or inherently fire-retardant, you are talking a lot of money per garment,” she notes. The price ranges anywhere from $70 to approximately $200, depending on the specifications required. “Your cotton and your poly-cotton are your two cheapest to go by.” Cotton and poly-cotton clothing are PIPELINE SPRING 2016 | 29
PRODUCTS | PROTECTIVE CLOTHING most commonly used for high-visibility garments in the paving industry, she adds. “They will use the high-viz orange 100 per cent cotton or the poly-cotton that will protect them so that they can be noticed, but they don’t need the fire-retardant.” OUT WITH THE OLD As with any other kind of personal protective equipment, maintenance and care are vital if one wants to make a protective garment last longer. Black recommends regular cleaning of garments to keep them both functional and free of residue that may compromise the garment’s integrity. If a piece of clothing has a rip or tear in it, it must be mended immediately, and the mending process needs to be done with flame-resistant thread. If a patch is required, the patch needs to be flameresistant fabric, ideally of the same type from which the garment was originally made. “Those types of things will help a worker get more wear out of his or her garment,” Black notes. A regular inspection process is also necessary. “Sometimes, people don’t notice that maybe, there is starting to be a rip or something,” she adds. “It is important at the cleaning stage that they are doing the inspection process and that the zippers are checked and all the clothes are checked and the seams are checked, so that things can be caught early.” According to Black, the following
instances indicate that it may be time to replace a garment: the zippers are broken or not working properly; the garment has already been mended too many times and has succumbed permanently to wear and tear; the seams are coming apart; there are holes or other defects; or the garment has become contaminated with flammable material or any chemicals that could be dangerous. “If the garment has been contaminated with stuff that you just can’t wash out, then the garment needs to be retired as well,” Black says. “There are a lot of different reasons why you would want to retire it, but the main one being that the garment may not protect the individual anymore.” Chris Ransome, president and chief executive officer of Ranpro, a manufacturer of protective clothing in Simcoe, Ontario, agrees. “Especially when you are looking at the high-risk environments, that proper garment care is very important,” he stresses. A protective garment that has absorbed a lot of grease and oil on its surface can add to the burn injury if it is caught in an accident, he cautions. “Proper maintenance and care of those garments is very critical to ensure that you are wearing a garment that will protect you in the event of an accident.” Hilmer says that much industrial chemical-protective clothing is designed to provide “limited-use” wear. “Limited
use is designed to be worn either until the garment is damaged or until it is contaminated,” he explains. “Essentially, it is a little bit more disposable, but it is really only designed to be used once if it is exposed to a chemical. Once the process of chemical penetration or permeation is standard, there is no way to stop it.” The only way to test the fabric to see if it retains its function as a protective barrier is to conduct destructive testing, which is counterproductive, he notes. If a limited-use garment is worn without exposure to chemicals, it is best to clean the garment and make sure that it is dry before putting it away. “If you are going to fold it up and keep it in bags and stuff like that, it should be dried before it is folded,” Hillmer advises. The CCOHS warns that no material can resist all chemicals, nor will any material be capable of resisting a specific chemical indefinitely. Some chemicals can permeate a fabric in a few seconds, while others may go through the same material in days or weeks. As such, it is vital to ensure that the material used is correct for the relevant chemicals and that regular inspections identify and replace garments before they become ineffective. PL Jeff Cottrill is editor of Canadian Occupational Health and Safety News. Follow us on Twitter @PipelineOHS
A VARIETY OF STANDARDS While many kinds of personal protective equipment come with specific, certified standards for selection and use — typically authored by CSA Group in Canada and the American National Standards Institute (ANSI) in the United States — consistent standards for general protective clothing are scarce in North America. Part of the problem is that protective work clothing is a diverse category, and what works for one kind of clothing may not apply to another kind. “In European standards, there is a standard called ISO 16602, which actually covers six different types of protective apparel, but it is not really adopted in North America,” explains Randy Hillmer, national sales manager with Lakeland Canada, a company that manufactures protective clothing in Brantford, Ontario. “CSA has reflective-clothing standards. But there is very little in the way, at least of accepted standards in North America.” CSA Z96-09, or High-Visibility Safety Apparel, is a standard that deals with performance requirements concerning colour, retro-reflection, minimum areas, configuration of the materials, conspicuity and minimum amounts of retro-reflective 30 | SPRING 2016 PIPELINE
materials in high-visibility gear. As far as FR clothing goes, the Canadian General Standards Board offers Workwear for Protection against Hydrocarbon Flash Fire, or CGSB-155.20, but manufacturers usually go by ASTM International standards ASTM F2733 (Standard Specification for Flame Resistant Rainwear for Protection Against Flame Hazards) and ASTM F1891 (Standard Specification for Arc and Flame Resistant Rainwear). Hillmer adds that the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA) in Quincy, Massachusetts has standards for the use of chemical-protective clothing. “But they are generally only followed by the fire-services industry. They are not necessarily followed by general industry,” he notes. Among relevant NFPA standards are NFPA 1952 (Surface Water Operations Protective Clothing and Equipment), NFPA 1977 (Protective Clothing and Equipment for Wildland Fire Fighting), NFPA 1992 (Liquid Splash-Protective Ensembles and Clothing for Hazardous Materials Emergencies) and NFPA 1999 (Protective Clothing and Ensembles for Emergency Medical Operations).
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