Subsidiary of Chinese state-owned CNOOC Ltd. charged for explosion that killed 2 workers in Alberta in 2016; Nexen (blamed the workers) facing 8 charges under Occupational Health & Safety Act. How many charges will the court order as “donations” to enabling NGOs, propaganda group “Insider Education,” an arena, frac research, etc? Or will all the charges be dropped to keep China happy?

Nexen charged after explosion killed two workers in 2016, Charges have been laid against Nexen Energy ULC after two workers were killed in an explosion at the Nexen Long Lake site south of Fort McMurray by Claire Theobald with files from Vincent McDermott, December 27, 2017, Calgary Herald

Charges have been laid against Nexen Energy ULC after two workers were killed in an explosion at the Nexen Long Lake site south of Fort McMurray.

Dave Williams, 30, and Drew Foster, 52, were changing valves on a hydrocracker — where hydrogen is combined with partially upgraded bitumen to remove sulphur while producing synthetic crude oil — on Jan. 15, 2016, when there was an explosion just before 3:30 p.m.

Foster died at the scene while Williams, after being transported to Edmonton for treatment in a burn unit, died a week later.

At the time, Nexen CEO Fang Zhi called the explosion “one of the darkest days in Nexen’s history” apologizing to the workers’ families.

Nexen is now facing eight charges under the Occupational Health and Safety Act.

The energy company is facing two counts each of failing to ensure the health and safety of a worker, failing to ensure that all workers were familiar with procedure before the work was done — specifically, isolating a single stage of a compressor rather than both stages — and failing to ensure a Make-Up Gas Compressor was serviced, maintained repaired or dismantled according to the manufacturer’s standards.

According to the charges, laid Dec. 19, the manufacturer’s standards warn, “do not loosen or remove any cylinder parts until the compressor is shut down and the pressure has been released. Pressure in the compressor system to be dropped to atmospheric pressure level.”

Nexen is facing another two charges of failing to ensure a Make-Up Gas Compressor was serviced, maintained repaired or dismantled according to the manufacturer’s standards where those specifications state, “before starting to work, the staff in charge of the machine must have read the operating manual, especially the chapter on safety rules. It is too late to do it during work/operation. This applies especially to staff working only occasionally, e.g. during setting up or maintenance of the machine.”

Nexen Energy ULC will face these charges in court on Feb. 14, 2018.

Long Lake, which is located 40 kilometres south of Fort McMurray and near the rural hamlet of Anzac, has not reopened since the fatal explosion.

Nexen, a subsidiary of Chinese state-owned firm CNOOC Ltd., has also been charged by the Alberta Energy Regulator after a ruptured pipeline spilled five million litres of emulsion into muskeg near the Long Lake property in July 2015.

A request from the company for more than $19 million in tax relief from the municipality was rejected by councillors last April.

[Emphasis added]

Comments to the article:

Blaine McDonald · NAIT
The maximum fine has never been applied in Alberta when workers are killed on the job, usually just a token fine?is given.

Deb Willms
This is what happens when you sell Canadian companies to foreign entities who have terrible labor standards, safety standards and human rights standards. The Canadian government and the Chinese are both guilty of greed. I hope they get the maximum fine so they will understand that Chinese standards are not acceptable to Canadians. [Pfffffffft!  Dream on. Real justice doesn’t exist in Rape & Pillage In-the-Cave-Canada]

[Refer also to:

2017 04 16: Corporate Greed Knows No Bounds, Especially in Alberta: Despite economic slowdown, Alberta work fatalities jump by 15 per cent last year

2017 04 25: Nexen (Eaten by CNOOC Ltd.; Feast enabled by Steve Harper) asks Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo for $19.5M tax break due to Long Lake blast. Brilliant comment by Shane Shaugnessy: “Our company killed a couple employees and damaged some important equipment. Due to these events we would like the opportunity to do less to support the communties we harm and pollute while still draining as much wealth and intellectual property back to China.”

2016 07 13: NEXEN BLAMES WORKERS for major explosion that killed two at tarsands SAGD steam injection site near Fort McMurray

2016 04 04: Why are frac’d Albertans so easily bribed by law violators and polluters? Why don’t groups in Fox Creek say “No thank you Chevron, We’d Rather Skate in Hell Than Take Your Money”

2015 12 04: The Fraud Files: Alberta NDP govt says AER performing well, No plans for any improvements. Energy Minister Marg McCuaig-Boyd: “[AER] is working well. Industry likes it.”

2015 09 16: Alberta Energy Regulator Theatrics? “No Duty of Care” AER Allows Resumption of 10 Production Pipelines at Nexen Long Lake; 45 Lines Remain Shut in

2015 09 07: Alberta No Duty of Care “regulator” says Nexen can reopen utility pipelines at Long Lake

2015 08 30: What’s the AER really up to shutting down Nexen’s 95 pipeline licenses? Protti trying to save his job? Make Albertans forget the courts ruled that the regulator owes no duty of care to anyone no matter how badly harmed, and can violate our constitutional rights with complete legal immunity?

2015 07 19: AER orders “expectations” to Nexen over massive pipeline spill south of Fort McMurray, Alberta. Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation calls the break a tarsands milestone: “It is now home to the largest spill in Canadian history”

2012 02 21: Million-dollar Nexen donation backs leading scholars at Mount Royal University, Largest gift to Scholars Program benefits future journalists, educators [To bias journalists and “scholars” to report favourably when Nexen pollutes or kills?]

2010 09 28: EnCana Corporation facing criminal charges Encana “donates” and escapes the charges two years later 2012 09 12: $250000 in community safety projects following Encana deadly sour gas leak

***

If AER were a regulator instead of a  Charter-violating enabler of polluting criminal corporations, and bully and abuser of harmed citizens, would the two men still be alive?

***

And how will the judge “punish” Nexen? A tiny fine or fines glorifying the company by ordering the fine(s) paid as donations pompously bragged about by “bought” journalists and scholars?

Or are the 8 charges just a facade, a game to fool the public and suggest that lawyers are important?

Will the judge nudge and wink wink for charges to be dropped if Nexen promises better behaviour?

2017 01 04: Happy Alberta-Oil-Patch-Get-Away-with-Murder New Year? After 10 years to investigate and release report, CNRL fined $10,000 – maximum allowed – following regulation violations that killed 2 workers, injured 5 others, 13 in total trapped by devastating tank collapse. All 29 charges against CNRL dropped. Alberta’s “No Duty of Care” energy “regulation” wins & kills, again.

Surprisingly, Nexen, as of December 28, 2017, has not donated to “Inside Education” yet. How soon before Nexen is to face these 8 charges for killing two workers will a “donation” appear?

***

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