American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2023 - 78

Lay-flat hose offers a responsible, efficient and affordable way to move water at hydraulic
fracturing sites, TETRA Technologies Inc. says. The company is testing new, more durable
hose to minimize the chance of leaks and simplify maintenance.
go out there and teach them how to do
lifts ergonomically and safely. "
New employees go through a weeklong
safety course. After that, most move to a
weeklong technical training course,
Winchell describes. " We are working
with the technical training team to incorporate
safety-related processes, such as
permit to work and job safety and environmental
analysis, into their training so
it reinforces how those processes work, "
she mentions.
In the field, safety advisers work with
the spreads they oversee to provide coaching,
recertify crew members and share
lessons learned. " Historically, HSE personnel
were often seen as police who
would visit sites to catch workers doing
something wrong, " Winchell says. " We
spend a lot of time on the HSE team discussing
how we can build rapport with
crew and approach topics so they're open
to our feedback on how to work safer. "
That effort and the aforementioned
programs are paying off, Winchell assesses.
" When we go out on location, which I
do as often as I can, we see a significant
difference even from where we started a
year ago on how people are talking about
safety, what they know about recent incidents,
and how open they are to coaching, "
she reports.
Universal is looking at supplementing
in-person coaching with technology. For
example, it has put cameras in its vehicles
to watch for distracted driving, fatigue,
unbuckled seatbelts and other risky behaviors.
" We have to approach these tools
not as Big Brother but as a way to help
employees stay safe so they make it home
to their families, " she says. " Taking the
time to manage expectations and the
thought around the cameras was well
worth the benefit we get of identifying
risky behaviors and the coaching we can
do from that.
" We are looking at using other computer
vision technologies to ensure PPE
is on and manage restricted zones, "
Winchell adds. " As we continue to digitize
operations, we may implement digital
safety assistants where work involves interactive
steps instead of relying on somebody
remembering the entire process or
walking through a paper form. The goal
is to make it as easy as possible for
people to work safely. "
Lay-Flat Hose
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As part of its commitment to reducing
and ultimately eliminating leaks and spills,
TETRA Technologies Inc. reports it is
testing a new, more resilient lay-flat hose.
According Jon Malone, the company's director
of business development, this hose
should improve safety, operations and environmental
performance at frac sites.
" The industry is moving toward transferring
more volumes of raw and treated
produced water through lay-flat hose and
decreasing its reliance on fresh and brackish
water for completion operations, " he
observes. " These hydraulic fracturing operations
take days to weeks to perform,
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American Oil and Gas Reporter - June 2023

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