Reeves County, TX — Last Thursday morning, December 3, 2015, there was a natural gas explosion out near Orla at the Ramsey Natural Gas Processing Plant. Two workers were injured in the explosion, which happened at about 10:00 a.m. that morning.
The plant is owned by Western Gas Partners, which is in turn operated by Anadarko Petroleum Corporation, a major oil company out of Houston.
This accident happened at the Ramsey plant close to U.S. Highway 285, which was shut down along with several other county roads after the large explosion.
Officials are saying that it’s fortunate only two workers were injured, but they still aren’t disclosing what caused it. Apparently, over 200 people are employed at the plant.
Map of Orla, Texas
Commentary:
Anadarko Petroleum is one of the bigger companies out there in the oil & gas industry, anybody will tell you that. As a result, some might accuse me of chasing after companies with deep pockets. However, at first glance, you can’t even tell Anadarko is related to this explosion — and that’s intentional.
There are degrees of separation between large oil & gas corporations and their smaller contractors and subsidiaries because, in the likely event that someone gets hurt, the person with the biggest bank account (in this case, Anadarko) is able to put some distance between themselves and the accident in order to avoid taking responsibility.
That may not be what happened here, but it’s a common enough occurrence.
But back to my original point. I’m not here to chase big companies around, hoping to make money off their negligence. But I don’t think we can overlook something this big, can you? A major explosion isn’t exactly something that happens everyday and this company ought to answer for their negligence, if there was any.
I know that OSHA has investigated Anadarko in the past and, in particular, has investigated the Ramsey plant in Orla as recently as February, when they were fined over $25,000 for safety violations regarding hazardous chemicals.
For their sake, I hope they learned their lesson back in February. If they didn’t, and this explosion can be linked at all to failed safety inspections in the past, then this company ought to buckle in for a rough legal ride, because they’d deserve to answer for what happened here.
— Grossman Law Offices
