Shutdowns crowd the deck with stored energy and strangers.
Turnarounds and shutdowns pack a facility with extra contractors doing maintenance on equipment full of stored energy. Lockout failures, hot work, dropped objects, and fatigue make shutdowns one of the most dangerous periods offshore.
Taking it offline.
A shutdown or turnaround takes equipment out of service for inspection, repair, and replacement, bringing in extra contractor crews and a dense schedule of high-risk maintenance tasks.
Released, ignited, dropped.
Stored-energy release from a failed lockout/tagout, hot-work fires, dropped objects in congested work areas, struck-by and caught-in injuries, and fatigue-driven errors over long shifts. Poor permit-to-work control and crowding are the recurring failures.
Which law — and who answers.
Production work crosses the line between vessel and platform, so the governing law turns on where you were.
The operator owns process safety on the facility — the design, the mechanical-integrity program, and the procedures. Its non-delegable duties and any retained control carry liability.
The contractor crews that run and maintain the equipment answer for negligent work; the borrowed-employee doctrine sorts out who controlled the job.
A defective separator, compressor, vessel, valve, or relief device supports a products claim, and an unfit system can render a vessel unseaworthy.
On a floater the crew are usually seamen (Jones Act); on a fixed platform the LHWCA/OCSLA and §905(b) vessel negligence apply. The firm preserves whichever route fits (Jones Act vs. workers’ comp).
Sound like your situation? Calling us is confidential, costs nothing, and starts nothing you don’t choose to start.
Text (713) 489-2297We reconstruct the turnaround.
The firm rebuilds the permit-to-work system, the isolation, and the contractor coordination, drawing on the caught-in and fire analyses and the borrowed-employee question across the contractors.
What the other side will argue.
Expect the familiar moves — the claim that the permit-to-work was followed rather than rushed — alongside the standard fights over seaman status, comparative fault, and surveillance. The full Production defense playbook, with how each argument is met, is set out on our production operations page.
A turnaround runs on permits.
Shutdowns are governed by a permit-to-work system, lockout/tagout, isolation certificates, and a job-safety plan — a dense, dated record. The firm reconstructs the work control with a process-safety expert, and the permits, the LOTO records, the contractor rosters, and the schedule show whether the operation was planned safely and who controlled it (borrowed-employee doctrine).
A shutdown injury is almost always a work-control failure — a permit, an isolation, or a coordination step that was skipped.
What to protect first.
For this work the evidence is the permits, the lockout/tagout records, the contractor rosters, and the schedule — held by the company and routinely overwritten, so demand preservation in writing before it is lost, and get prompt medical care. The full first-days checklist is on our production operations page.
Where this connects.
Production Operations · Caught-In Injuries · Explosion & Fire · Borrowed Employee · Maintenance Crew
What happens when you text us
Tell us what happened — in your own words, as much or as little as you want.
We review it free. You learn whether maritime law protects you and what your options actually are.
You decide. Nothing is filed, and no one contacts your employer, unless you choose to move forward.
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Reach out even if…
- You think the accident was partly your fault — under the Jones Act, your own fault reduces a recovery but does not bar it.
- You already gave a statement or signed something — a release signed under pressure can be challenged.
- You still work for the company — talking to a lawyer is confidential, and retaliation for pursuing a claim can itself be actionable.
- You’re not sure your case is “big enough” — that’s exactly what a free review is for.
Catastrophic offshore injury? The investigation can’t wait.
Equipment gets repaired, records get revised, and witnesses rotate off the rig. Doyle Dennis Avery LLP moves quickly to preserve the evidence and identify every responsible party. A case review costs nothing, there is no obligation, and your employer will not know you contacted us.
This page is general information, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. The law that applies to an offshore injury — the Jones Act, the LHWCA and \u00a7 905(b), OCSLA, the general maritime law, product-liability law, or another body of law — and the parties responsible depend on the specific facts. Prior results do not guarantee or predict a similar outcome. Doyle Dennis Avery LLP · Houston, Texas. This is attorney advertising.
