Houston Offshore Accident Lawyers
Offshore workers suffer serious injuries caused by conditions on offshore platform rigs, spar platforms, drillships, jack-up rigs, tankers, crew boats, lay barges, and other vessels. When that unfortunately happens, our firm is ready to help you or a loved one. Our offshore injury lawyers are privileged to assist injured workers and crewmen nationwide.
Our offshore accident attorneys at Morrow & Sheppard LLP focus on offshore accidents that occur in the Gulf of Mexico, but we handle serious maritime and offshore injury cases around the country. In fact, we have handled serious personal injury and wrongful death cases arising from accidents all around the world, including the Middle East and Africa.
If you or a loved one has been seriously injured or tragically killed while working offshore, call us now at (866) 385-8354 for a free, confidential consultation with an experienced offshore accident lawyer to discuss your legal rights before they are jeopardized by your employer. There is no fee to speak with us, we only get paid if we win your case.
Handling Offshore Accident and Explosion Claims Throughout the Gulf of Mexico
Millions of Dollars Recovered for Our Clients
Help With All Types of Offshore Injuries
A Track Record of Success
No Fee Unless We Win!
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The Offshore Oil & Gas Industry
The offshore oil and gas industry includes three types of companies:
- Oil exploration and production companies that own mineral lease rights to the oil and gas.
- Drilling contractors that drill the wells for the oil companies.
- Oilfield services companies that provide assistance in drilling the well, including assistance regarding everything from wireline to ROVs to topside drilling equipment.
No Fee Unless We Win
At Morrow & Sheppard LLP, we understand the hardships injured workers or victims and their loved ones face as they try to heal and make sense of their accident. That’s why we work on a contingency-fee basis, which means no fee unless we win your case. Our fee is a percentage of the verdict or settlement we obtain for you.
Common Causes of Offshore Accidents
As our Houston offshore accident lawyers know too well, working offshore can be dangerous, often because the large corporations who operate offshore seek to maximize profits at the expense of safety.
The fatality rate for offshore workers is seven times higher than for all U.S. workers.
Common causes of offshore accidents include:
Helicopter crashes
Basket transfer injuries
Crewboat accidents
Falls from height
Dropped objects
Explosions and fires
Chemical burns
Equipment pinches and severed arms and legs
Slip and falls
Illness and disease
Exposure to toxic fumes and chemicals
Lifting injuries
Crane and hoisting equipment injuries
Collisions with rig floor equipment
Types of Offshore Facilities
The kinds of facilities where offshore injuries occur include:
Compliant Towers –narrow, flexible towers and a piled foundation supporting a conventional deck for drilling and production operations.
Drillships –self-propelled floating rigs that look like ships. Capable of operating in deepwater and move around more quickly than semis. Station-keeping is usually accomplished by dynamic positioning.
Fixed Platforms – built on concrete and/or steel legs anchored directly onto the seabed, supporting a deck with space for drilling rigs, production facilities and crew quarters. Immobile and designed for long-term use.
Floating Production Systems – large ships equipped with processing facilities and moored to a location for a long period. These include FPSOs (floating production, storage, and offloading systems), FSO (floating storage and offloading systems), and FSU (floating storage units).
Inland Barges – these rigs are specially adapted for inland waters close to shore.
Jack-up Platforms – platforms that can be jacked up above the sea, and can be lowered like jacks. These platforms, used in relatively low depths, are designed to move from place to place, and then anchor themselves by deploying the jack-like legs.
Jack-up Rigs – Used for shallow water drilling, these have legs that penetrate into the seafloor and the hull jacks up and down the legs.
Platform Rigs – self-contained rigs that rest on fixed platforms. Used for field development drilling.
Seastars Platforms – mini-tension leg platforms.
Semi-submersibles – floating mobile offshore drilling units that have ballasted columns. Station-keeping is accomplished either by anchored mooring lines or dynamic positioning systems.
Semi-submersible Platforms – legs are buoyant and permit structure to float. Can be moved from place to place.
Spar Platforms—moored to the seabed with more conventional mooring lines.
Tender-Assist Rigs – monohull units that are moored next to a platform. The rig is installed onto the platform, but power, storage and other functions remain on the tender.
Tension-leg Platforms – consist of floating rigs tethered to the seabed in a manner that eliminates most vertical movement of the structure.
Offshore Oil Exploration & Production Companies
The largest offshore E&P companies include:
- Andadarko
- BP
- Chevron
- Cobalt International Energy
- ConocoPhillips
- Ecopetrol
- ExxonMobil
- Freeport-McMoRan Oil & Gas
- Hess
- Marathon
- Murphy
- Noble Energy
- Shell
- Statoil
Offshore Drilling Contractors
The top offshore drilling contractors include:
- Atwood Oceanics Inc.
- Awilco Drilling Plc.
- Blake Offshore
- Diamond Offshore Drilling Inc.
- Ensco Plc.
- Hercules Offshore, Inc.
- Nabors
- Noble Corporation
- Ocean Rig
- Pacific Drilling S.A. Paragon Offshore
- Rowan Companies Plc.
- Seadrill Ltd.
- Transocean Ltd.
- Vantage Drilling
Oilfield Services
The top-grossing oilfield services companies include:
- Baker Hughes Inc. –Houston, Texas
- Cameron—Houston, Texas
- CARBO Ceramics Inc.—Houston, Texas
- Core Laboratories—Houston, Texas
- Dril-Quip Inc—Houston, Texas
- DXP Enterprises Inc.—Houston, Texas
- Exterran Partners LP—Houston, Texas
- Fluor
- FMC Technologies Inc.—Houston, Texas
- Geokinetics Inc. –Houston, Texas
- Halliburton –Houston, Texas
- Helix Energy Solutions—Houston, Texas
- Jacobs Engineering
- Key Energy Services Inc.—Houston, Texas
- National Oilwell Varco Inc. –Houston, Texas
- Oceaneering International Inc.—Houston, Texas
- Oil States International Inc.—Houston, Texas
- OYO Geospace—Houston, Texas
- Robbins & Myers Inc. –Dayton, Ohio
- RPC Inc. –Atlanta, Georgia
- Superior Energy Services Inc—New Orleans, Louisiana
- Schlumberger Ltd.—Houston, Texas
- WorleyParsons
Take Action Now!
If you or a loved one has been injured or suffered an illness while working offshore, a Houston offshore accident attorney at Morrow & Sheppard LLP can help. Please call us at (800) 489-2216 or click here for a free, confidential consultation. We would love to speak with you and see what we can do to help you in your case.
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