Families win blowout suit
Mud company found partly responsible for fatal accident
McALESTER — A jury has determined a company supplying mud services as part of a drilling operation two years ago near Quinton bears some responsibility for the fatalities.
National Oilwell Varco was the sole remaining defendant in two wrongful death suits filed by survivors of two of five men who died in an explosion and fire on Jan. 22, 2018, of the Pryor Trust 0718 1H-9 well owned by Red Mountain Energy.
The Pittsburg County jury on Monday awarded $10 million judgments in each of the cases, apportioning 10% responsibility for the accident to National Oilwell Varco, which makes it responsible for $2 million of that amount.
The lawsuits were brought by surviving family members of Josh Ray of Fort Worth, Texas, the well driller who died, and Cody Risk of
Wellington, Colorado, a rig hand who also died in the event.
Along with Ray and Risk, Oklahomans Matthew Smith, Roger Cunningham and Parker Waldridge died in the explosion and fire.
National Oilwell Varco had been hired by Red Mountain to engineer and execute a plan to provide adequate mud for the well.
Despite the jury' s determination in the cases that other initial defendants bore most of the responsibility for what happened, they won't be responsible for paying any of the judgments.
They previously had settled their parts in the cases, a member of the plaintiffs' legal team said Tuesday.
They include well owner Red Mountain Energy, Crescent Consulting LLC, the company Red Mountain hired to oversee the well's drilling and completion and Patterson-UTI, the company hired t o dril l t he well.
Plaintiffs' attorneys stated in a release issued on Tuesday
that the combined verdicts make up one of the largest judgments ever awarded as part of a wrongful death case in Oklahoma's history and the largest awarded in Pittsburg County.
Attorney Jeff Wigington said National Oil well Varco's defense was that it bore no responsibility for what happened.
Instead, Wigington said the mud supplier blamed the accident on the actions of the well owner, the firm overseeing the well's drilling and completion plans, the drilling contractor and Ray.
The jury found that Ray bore no responsibility for the accident.
Wigington said he did not know whether National Oilwell Varco will appeal the jury's verdicts in the two cases.
“From our clients' standpoint, it wasn't about the money. It was about taking the case to the jury and allowing it to apportion responsibility,” Wigington said.
“The jury held National Oilwell Varco accountable” in what happened, regardless of the percentage, Wigington said.
“And it was very important for the Ray family to clear the name of Josh Ray, because they (National Oilwell Varco) was blaming him for the death of his friends.”
The accident happened while the crew was in the midst of putting a new drilling bit on a string of pipe it was using to drill a well targeting the Woodford Shale in the Arkoma Basin.
The well was designed to reach a depth of 7,615 feet and a total measured length (including its lateral) of 17,799 feet.
It had been drilled to a measured depth of 13,435 feet when the decision was made to pull the rig's pipe string out of the hole so that the drilling bit could be replaced.
During that evolution, the well blew out because of an influx of natural gas into its bore that investigators from the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board later determined had been ongoing for 14 hours before the event occurred.
Unlike Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and state investigative agencies, the chemical safety and hazard investigation board doesn't assign blame or issue fines as part of its work.
It does, however, issue recommended changes in safety equipment and operational protocols that aim to prevent similar accidents from happening again.
The board's final report said many factors contributed to what happened, including that drilling was performed without needed planning, equipment, skills or procedures. It also noted that the poor design of the drilling rig's doghouse prevented the men from escaping from the fire.
As for recommendations, the board called for the American Petroleum Institute to issue a bulletin related to onshore drilling like one it issued in 2013 that created guidelines for offshore operators to develop “well construction interface documents” designed to align operator and drilling safety management systems with a given well's plan.
The guidelines, board officials said, “facilitate communication between t he l ease operator and drilling contractor” that creates a safe plan to drill and complete a well.