The Permian Basin area recently experienced an H2S incident that resulted in one fatality and four injuries — one was very serious. My first thoughts were, "not again" and then, "why does this sort of thing keep occurring in the oilfield." I don't know many details of the incident, only what was published in the local newspaper. Two people were on top of a tank, opened a valve and the released gas apparently enveloped the whole site as the other three people were on the ground when the valve was opened. Folks are still dying and being injured from a known hazard that has been studied, analyzed and has been present in our workplace since the very first oil well was drilled. I would venture to say that H2S is the foremost topic of safety training in our industry. In most cases, we already have knowledge where H2S is most likely to be present before we even go to a location. It is particularly abundant in most of the Permian Basin and yet we have another tragic death and injury because of it.
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