Evaluation of non-human factors responsible for accidents in oil and gas companies in Niger Delta

The study was carried out to evaluate the non-human factors responsible for accident causation in the oil and gas companies in the Niger Delta region. These non-human factors (NHFs) were captured using natural occurrence factor (NOF) and site location factors (SLF) while accident causation was conceptualized using rate of accidents (RA) and rate of incidents (RI). Cross-sectional and inferential designs were adopted and population comprised of field-workers of six sampled oil and gas companies in Niger-Delta from which 440 samples were obtained using Multi-stage sampling technique. Data were collected using questionnaire designed based on 5-point Likert and data analysis were done with descriptive statistics and regression using XL-STST version-20.1. The results of the descriptive statistics using weighted average (WA) revealed that the non-human factors which include NOF and SLF are substantial accident causation factors with WA of 3.82 and 3.55>3.00 respectively. and there is high level of accident occurrence which includes RA and RI with WA of 3.92 and 3.99 respectively. The regression analysisthere is positive and significant relationship between non-human factors and accident causation in the oil and gas firms (coefficient of determinant=0.292, p-value=0.000). The study concluded that non-human factors are substantial accident causalities factors in oil and gas firms in Niger-Delta. The study recommended that management of the oil and gas firms in Niger-delta should consider and use safer platforms that could withstand different level of weather adversity in order to assure safety of oil and gas workers in the platform especially deep-sea offshore oil and gas operations because the outcome of the current study has established that non-human factor like natural occurrences and site locations are substantial predictors of accident causation in the oil and gas firms operating in the Niger-Delta.