The global drilling industry pushed its lost-time incident (LTI) rate to a record low of 0.49 despite the number of fatalities increasing from 23 in 2007 to 32 in 2008, according to the latest IADC Incident Statistics Program (ISP) summary.
A total of 105 contractors, representing approximately 78% of the worldwide rig fleet, participated in the 2008 program. Their data accounted for 454.68 million manhours worked, during which a total of 1,078 LTIs and 4,141 recordable incidents were reported.
Additional graphics will be published in the Sept/Oct DC.
Looking specifically at LTI rates, the Middle East reported the lowest numbers for both land and offshore – 0.28 and 0.20, respectively.
In other regions, the US and Europe both achieved strong improvements as evidenced in lower LTI rates. They were 1.03 for US land and 0.15 for US offshore; 0.46 for European land and 0.27 for European offshore.
Central and South America also improved its LTI rates, which stood at 0.29 for land and 0.34 for offshore.
Asia Pacific and Africa saw their rate of improvement slow down. In Asia Pacific, the land LTI rate was 0.40 and the offshore number was 0.39. In Africa, the onshore rate was 0.62 while the offshore rate was 0.40.
In Canada, onshore contractors showed improvement, with a 0.59 LTI rate, while the offshore rate worsened to 0.54.
Looking at fatalities, 12 of the 32 were employees who had less than six months of service with the company. By region, six of the fatalities occurred in the Middle East, 15 in the US, four in Central and South America, five in Africa and two in Asia Pacific.
Additional data from the new ISP report will be published in the September/October 2009 issue of Drilling Contractor.
