A Calgary-headquartered company has been penalized more than $42,000 after an explosion injured two workers at a B.C. facility that accepts waste from oil fields.
The explosion occurred at about 5:10 p.m. on June 24, 2024, at a facility about 13 kilometres northeast of Dawson Creek run by Secure Energy Inc. & Secure Energy Services Inc. et al. At the time, a contractor was installing safety chains inside a shaker building — where tanks separate liquids from solids.
“Welding work was done above the shaker tank where the presence of a flammable or explosive substance was,” reads an incident report from WorkSafeBC, “and an explosion occurred.”
The explosion lifted and threw off the shaker tank’s steel lid, seriously injuring the workers, according to three WorkSafeBC staff who inspected the facility the same day of the incident.
The report does not specify what happened to the workers, nor how their injuries were deemed “serious.”
The report suggests methane-laced pond water used to flush out the tank may have set off the explosion. They recommended the company test the water to eliminate the possibility of pond water being the source of the fuel.
Further inspections determined the company had breached nine worker health and safety regulations.
Procedures set up to independently lock out energy isolating devices at the facility were found to be understaffed. Secure Energy also failed to set up “hot work” procedures to prevent explosions when work that involved welding or burning was being done.
“In review of the incident that occurred at the worksite and the evidence provided, the employer failed to provide effective instruction, training and supervision to their subcontractor,” notes the redacted incident report.
A contractor, Key Energy Ltd., was also penalized just over $6,000 in the incident for not identifying hazards or controls, and for having an "inadequate" hot work hazard assessment.
"The firm also failed to provide its workers with the information, instruction, training, and supervision necessary to ensure their health and safety. These were all high-risk violations," notes WorkSafeBC in the Sept. 24 penalty notification.
Follow-up inspections carried out in August found Secure Energy had moved into compliance with worker safety regulations.
Secure Energy has grown to become one of Western Canada's largest oil and gas waste services suppliers. In 2021, it completed a merger with its chief rival Tervita Corporation.
The deal quickly caught the attention of Canada's competition watchdog. In its 2023 decision, the Competition Bureau said Secure and Tervita Corporation were the two largest suppliers, and in many areas, the only suppliers of oil and gas waste services in the Western Canadian Sedimentary Basin — a region containing one of the world’s largest reserves of petroleum and natural gas.
The bureau found the merger substantially lessened competition in 136 markets across Western Canada. It ordered Secure to sell over 29 facilities worth over $1 billion to remedy the anti-competitive effects.
The merger, wrote the Competition Tribunal in its decision, “has substantially lessened competition, and is likely to continue to substantially lessen competition for the foreseeable future.”
Secure challenged the decision, but in February 2024, Canada’s Supreme Court ruled in favour of the competition watchdog and dismissed the case.
