Offshore Injury Lawyers
We Are an Experienced Team of Offshore Injury Attorneys
The offshore injury lawyers at Morrow & Sheppard LLP are privileged to assist injured offshore workers and crewmen nationwide.
We have handled a wide variety of maritime personal injury cases, including accidents on traditional maritime vessels, offshore drilling rigs, and fixed platforms.
We focus on injuries that occur in the Gulf of Mexico, but we handle serious maritime and offshore personal 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.
Please call us now at (800) 489-2216 for a free, confidential consultation with an offshore injury lawyer to discuss your legal rights before they are jeopardized. There is no fee to speak with us, we only get paid if you win.
Jones Act & Maritime Law Questions
Often times, offshore injury cases are covered by the Jones Act, maritime law, or the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (“OCSLA”).
Please click here for answers to common questions regarding these cases.
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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.
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Offshore Oil & Gas Injuries
As our Houston offshore injury 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 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 injury attorney at Morrow & Sheppard 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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