TX Oil Company And Its VP Found Guilty Of Multiple Charges After Husband & Wife Died From Hydrogen Sulfide At Wellhead

[hatrack]

Aghorn Operating Inc., a Texas oilfield company, and its vice president pleaded guilty Tuesday to criminal charges resulting from the death of a worker and his wife in 2019 near Odessa. Aghorn will pay $1 million in fines and a services company, Kodiak Roustabout Inc., will pay an additional $400,000. Aghorn vice president Trent Day was sentenced to five months in prison.

The charges in United States v. Aghorn Operating, Inc. stemmed from the Oct. 26, 2019 incident at an Aghorn facility in the Permian Basin. Monitors for hydrogen sulfide, an invisible gas found in some oil reserves, were not working when Jacob Dean responded to an alarm to check a pump. Dean was exposed to fatal levels of the gas. His wife, Natalee Dean, then entered the facility looking for him and was also killed by hydrogen sulfide exposure.

Aghorn pleaded guilty this week to Clean Air Act negligent endangerment charges and an Occupational Safety and Health Act willful violation count. Day pleaded guilty to negligent endangerment charges. Kodiak Roustabout Inc. pleaded guilty to felony violation of the Safe Drinking Water Act for falsifying oil well integrity tests. Other pending charges will be dismissed as part of the plea agreements.

Exposure to hydrogen sulfide is among the leading causes of workplace gas inhalation deaths in the United States. Texas companies tapping into oil and gas reserves are required to test their gas for hydrogen sulfide and follow safety standards depending on the gas composition. Nonetheless, several oilfield deaths from hydrogen sulfide exposure, in addition to the Deans, have been reported in recent years. Another oilfield worker died in September 2022 after inhaling hydrogen sulfide while working in proximity to a sump pit near the Permian Basin town of Orla, Texas.

EDIT

https://insideclimatenews.org/news/16042025/texas-oilfield-company-guilty-in-hydrogen-sulfide-deaths/

[marble falls]

1. That little slap on the hand don't mean diddly squat. He can do six months in four months at a Club Fed ...

... bodies are a side effect of corporate greed.