Oil Worker Killed on Talos Energy Platform in U.S. Gulf of Mexico

February 20, 2018, by Liz Hampton and Ernest Scheyder

HOUSTON (Reuters) – An oil and gas worker on a Talos Energy platform in the U.S. Gulf of Mexico was killed on Saturday while replacing piping, the Bureau of Safety and Environmental Enforcement (BSEE) said on Tuesday.

The worker was injured while removing out-of-service fire suppression equipment and later died as a result of the injuries. The company has not publicly identified the deceased worker.

No other personnel were injured and there was no fire or release as a result of the accident, Talos said in a statement.

The Houston-based company said it has initiated an investigation and was working with regulators in its review of the accident, which occurred about 64 miles (103 km) south of Lake Charles, Louisiana. The platform was being operated by Energy Resource Technology GOM LLC, a Talos subsidiary.

Offshore drilling accidents claimed 29 lives between 2009 and 2016, according to the latest data available from federal regulator BSEE, including 11 offshore workers in the 2010 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion.

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The Trump administration has proposed rolling back some regulations initiated following that accident, such as requirements for operators to get third parties to certify that safety devices work under extreme conditions.

Talos’s Energy Resource Technology reported a fatality on a production platform in October 2013, according to BSEE. That accident occurred just a few months after federal regulators placed the operator on a performance improvement plan.

In 2016, Energy Resource Technology (ERT) was ordered to pay $4.2 million and put on three years of probation for felony violations tied to its offshore activities.

ERT pleaded guilty to two counts of failing to comply with regulations covering hot work and blowout preventer testing. It also pleaded guilty to violations of the Clean Water Act by dumping pollutants into the Gulf of Mexico and for tampering with methods for collecting water discharge samples, U.S. prosecutor’s said.

ERT did not immediately respond to a request for comment about its safety record.

Reporting by Liz Hampton and Ernest Scheyder; editing by Grant McCool