TAQA North: 2011-2012

Northwest Alberta

A former Shell Drilling Superintendent that we worked with on Shell projects requested our assistance on his new winter drilling project with TAQA. This project would involve months of pre planning with the TAQA management team (CSI HSE, On-Site Representatives, Superintendent and geology). We would be using a drilling contractor with a very high TRIF and many new to the industry workers including a weak management team. Prior to the beginning of the project we did a full rig inspection to make sure that all equipment was fit for service before entering the field so all we would have to deal with was personnel issues. Other issues we knew we would have to deal with were extreme cold with temperature reaching -50 Celsius and traveling on ice roads. The project was completed with a few minor incidents early on in the project and ended strong.

• training all personnel about working in extreme cold environments. How to dress, what to drink and all the signs of frostbite
• close supervision and mentoring of new workers to ensure they were aware of the hazards of the job and the proper procedures on how to do the job safely
• hazard recognition training and development of a hazard hunt program
• development of themed safety meetings, i.e.: hand and finger safety