Company has acknowledged failure to meet their commitment to send people home safely
Suncor Energy has pleaded guilty to two charges stemming from a December 2019 incident aboard the Terra Nova floating production, storage and offloading (FPSO) vessel, approximately 350 kilometers off the coast of Newfoundland.
The guilty plea, submitted on September 5, has resulted in total fines exceeding $110,000, including penalties and a contribution to a safety management program.
CBC News noted that the incident occurred on December 29, 2019, when a Suncor employee fell from a ladder while conducting gas testing inside a tank on the Terra Nova. The employee sustained what the company described as “non-life-threatening injuries,” which included a head injury and multiple fractures, requiring surgery and hospitalization for several weeks.
The Canada-Newfoundland and Labrador Offshore Petroleum Board (C-NLOPB), which regulates the province’s oil industry, detailed the charges in a statement released on Thursday. Suncor was fined $45,000 for each charge, amounting to a total of $90,000, and was ordered to pay an additional $20,000 to the North Atlantic Health and Safety Management Program.
Suncor was charged with failing to ensure the health and safety of its employees aboard the vessel. The second charge specifically related to the company’s negligence in ensuring that workers wore safety harnesses securely attached to lifelines when entering confined spaces.
Regulatory response and future measures
According to an agreed statement of facts, Suncor failed to guarantee that workers utilized appropriate safety harnesses connected to secure anchors outside the ballast tank. According to CBC News, the statement further noted that the company did not ensure that protective equipment was used during the emergency situation that led to the employee’s fall.
In a response to the incident, Suncor’s communications representative, Leithan Slade, expressed the company’s acknowledgment of its shortcomings in safety protocols. “We did not meet our commitment to send people home safely at the end of every shift, and that’s why we are supportive of the creative sentence,” Slade stated.
In the wake of the incident and subsequent investigation, Suncor indicated that it has initiated steps to enhance its safety practices, although specific details on these improvements were not provided. “For example, we’ve updated our work plans to improve access to and egress from a confined space,” Slade said.
The incident came shortly after another serious safety issue when Suncor was instructed to halt production on December 19, 2019, due to defective redundant fire-water pumps on the Terra Nova.
Following the 2019 incident, C-NLOPB ordered Suncor to stop all confined-space work at the Terra Nova platform and mandated a comprehensive review and update of the company’s confined-space work policies and procedures to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements.
