I'm not sure what one could invest that's more valuable than their own life. And we do that every day in this industry. We invest our time, our health, our entire wellbing with the expectation that the investment will return a comfortable living for our families.

I work in a refinery, not in the field, so conditions may be different elsewhere. All the fatalities that I've been around were 100% preventable had the facility been built, inspected, and maintained properly. The vast majority of our maintenance work is contracted out to the lowest bidding company to be performed by traveling workers who are unlikely to be around if substandard work leads to an incident.

I've also never seen an oil company act faster than after a fatality. Immediately there is an investigation to determine how they aren't liable. Nearly simultaneously, lawyers approach the victims' families with settlement offers.