Refinery Injuries
⚖ Refinery Injuries
Houston Refinery Accident Attorney
A phone call that your husband, wife, father, or son has been badly hurt — or hasn't come home — from a shift at the refinery is one of the worst moments a family can face. In the hours and days that follow, you're dealing with a hospital, a grieving family, and a massive company that is already working to protect itself. You need someone in your corner who moves just as fast, and who actually understands how these facilities operate.
Houston and the surrounding Gulf Coast are home to some of the largest refining and petrochemical complexes in the world — Baytown, Deer Park, Pasadena, Texas City, Port Arthur, and the Houston Ship Channel corridor among them. These are enormous, high-hazard industrial sites running 24 hours a day, filled with high-pressure vessels, flammable and toxic chemicals, and a constantly shifting workforce of plant employees and outside contractors. When a refinery or its contractors cut corners on safety, the result is rarely a minor injury — it's a catastrophic burn, an amputation, a permanently disabling injury, or a death.
Stilwell Injury Law brings decades of experience in complex energy and industrial litigation to these cases, including firsthand experience representing parties in litigation over rig and industrial explosions, equipment failures, and process safety failures in the oil and gas industry. That background gives our firm a real understanding of how refineries, their contractors, and their insurers investigate and respond to a serious incident — knowledge we now put to work exclusively for injured workers and grieving families.
⚖ Refinery Injuries
Common Causes of Serious Refinery Accidents
Refineries and petrochemical plants are classified by OSHA as “highly hazardous” facilities precisely because of what can go wrong there. The most serious refinery injuries and deaths typically arise from:
-
Explosions and fires, often triggered by a hydrocarbon or chemical release meeting an ignition source
-
Process safety failures, including the loss of containment of flammable or toxic materials from vessels, piping, or reactors
-
Equipment and mechanical failures, such as corroded piping, failed valves, ruptured pressure vessels, or malfunctioning relief systems
-
Confined space incidents, where workers are overcome by toxic or oxygen-deficient atmospheres inside tanks, vessels, or sewers
-
Falls from height, common during turnarounds and maintenance work on elevated platforms, towers, and scaffolding
-
Struck-by and caught-in-between accidents, involving cranes, forklifts, heavy equipment, or moving machinery
-
Electrical accidents and arc flash injuries, particularly during maintenance or “hot work” near energized equipment
-
Hot work incidents, where welding, cutting, or grinding ignites nearby flammable vapors or residue
-
Toxic chemical exposure and releases, including hydrogen sulfide (H2S), benzene, hydrofluoric acid, sulfuric acid, and other process chemicals that can cause severe respiratory injury, chemical burns, neurological damage, or death
Chemical exposure is a real and serious risk at every refinery — but it's only one piece of a much broader picture. Most of the catastrophic refinery cases we see involve a combination of factors: a piece of equipment that should have been shut down, a safety procedure that was skipped to keep a unit running, or a contractor crew that wasn't properly coordinated with plant operations.
Who Is Responsible for a Refinery Accident?
A refinery is rarely operated by a single company. On any given day, a plant may have its own employees working alongside dozens of outside contractors — maintenance crews, scaffolding companies, electrical contractors, inspection firms, and specialized turnaround crews brought in for planned maintenance outages. This is especially true during a “turnaround,” when a unit is shut down for major maintenance and the workforce on site can multiply overnight.
That complexity is exactly why refinery accidents so often trace back to failures in coordination and oversight, similar to what we see investigating oilfield accidents:
-
The plant or a lead contractor rushed contractors to finish a job faster than conditions safely allowed
-
Multiple contractors' work wasn't properly sequenced, creating hazards for crews working nearby
-
Safety concerns raised by workers were minimized, delayed, or ignored to avoid costly downtime
-
Contractor crews were not adequately trained for the specific hazards of that unit or task
-
Equipment, piping, or safety systems were not properly inspected, maintained, or repaired
-
Required permits, such as hot work or confined space entry permits, were skipped or improperly issued
-
Communication broke down between the refinery, its contractors, and its subcontractors
Depending on the facts, responsibility may fall on the refinery owner or operator, a general or turnaround contractor, individual subcontractors, an engineering or inspection firm, or the manufacturer of defective equipment or safety devices. Identifying every responsible party takes a thorough investigation — something too many injured workers and families don't get from an inexperienced attorney or an insurance adjuster in a hurry to close the file.
Texas Nonsubscriber Employers and Refinery Injury Claims
One of the most important — and least understood — issues in a Texas refinery injury case is whether the employer is a workers' compensation “subscriber.” Unlike most states, Texas does not require employers to carry workers' compensation insurance. Many large refining and petrochemical companies choose to be nonsubscribers, opting out of the state system entirely.
This distinction matters enormously. If your employer is a nonsubscriber and you're injured because of the company's negligence, you may be able to sue your employer directly for full damages — and Texas law prevents a nonsubscriber employer from using common defenses like contributory negligence or assumption of risk to reduce or defeat your claim. This is a very different legal landscape than a typical workers' compensation claim, and it requires an attorney who understands exactly how to evaluate and pursue it. Whether you were a direct employee of the refinery or worked for one of the many contractors on site, we can help you determine what type of claim applies to your situation.
What to Do If a Family Member Is Injured or Killed at a Refinery
-
Focus on medical care first. Get your loved one the best possible treatment — burn injuries and chemical exposures often require specialized care beyond a standard emergency room.
-
Don't give a recorded statement to the company or its insurer without an attorney present. Refineries and their insurers move quickly to gather statements before you understand the full extent of the injuries or your rights.
-
Preserve any protective equipment or clothing worn at the time of the incident, exactly as it was — burned, torn, or chemically stained gear can be powerful evidence.
-
Write down everything you know or are told about what happened, including the names of coworkers, supervisors, and any contractor or company names mentioned.
-
Identify every company that was on site, including the refinery operator and any contractors or subcontractors performing work in the area at the time.
-
Ask about incident reports, safety permits, and OSHA involvement. Serious refinery accidents typically trigger an OSHA investigation and internal incident investigation — both are important sources of evidence.
-
Call Stilwell Injury Law before speaking further with the company or its insurance representatives. The earlier we're involved, the more evidence we can preserve, including physical evidence at the plant that can be altered, repaired, or removed within days of an incident.
What Compensation May Be Available
Depending on the nature of the injury, an injured refinery worker or family may be entitled to recover:
-
Medical expenses, including specialized burn care, reconstructive surgery, and long-term rehabilitation
-
Lost wages and lost earning capacity, particularly significant for workers who can no longer perform physically demanding refinery or industrial work
-
Physical pain and mental anguish, including the trauma associated with severe burns, disfigurement, or witnessing a catastrophic incident
-
Disfigurement and permanent impairment, common in serious burn and explosion injuries
-
Wrongful death damages for surviving family members, including loss of financial support, loss of companionship, and mental anguish, if a loved one was killed
Because refinery litigation often involves multiple corporate defendants, complex OSHA and process safety records, and significant insurance coverage, these cases require an attorney prepared to fully investigate and litigate — not simply negotiate a quick settlement.
⚖ Free & Confidential Consultation
A Loved One Hurt or Killed at a Refinery? Call Stilwell Injury Law Today.
Refineries and their insurers have teams of investigators and defense attorneys working within hours of a serious incident. Your family deserves that same level of preparation on your side, starting now. We work on a contingency fee basis: if we don't recover for you, you owe us nothing.
Call (832) 274-6749 or email tom@tsinjurylaw.com for a free, confidential consultation.