Texas Oilfield Company Charged With Workers Safety, Environmental Crimes

March 21, 2022

A federal grand jury in Midland, Texas, returned an indictment charging an oilfield company and an executive of the company with worker safety and environmental crimes.

According to court documents, Aghorn Operating Inc. owns and operates oil wells and leases in Texas. Aghorn and Trent Day, Vice President of Aghorn, were indicted for violating the Clean Air Act relating to releases of hydrogen sulfide from an Aghorn facility, as well as obstructing an Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) investigation.

Aghorn was also charged with three worker safety OSHA crimes for causing the death of an Aghorn employee.

The charges are the result of an investigation of the Oct. 26, 2019, death of Aghorn employee, Jacob Dean and his wife, Natalee Dean. Both were overcome by hydrogen sulfide, a poisonous gas, at an Aghorn facility in Odessa.

According to the allegations in the indictment, on the night of the incident, Jacob Dean responded to a call to check the pump house at the facility, an enclosed building with two bay doors. His wife, Natalee Dean, knew where Jacob had gone, and started calling him when he did not return in a timely manner.

When those calls went unanswered, Natalee drove to the station with her two children, aged nine and six. A pump had failed in the pump house, causing a leak of produced water containing hydrogen sulfide. Jacob had been overcome by hydrogen sulfide in the pump house, and when Natalee arrived at the station, she exited the vehicle and proceeded to the pump house, where she too was overcome by the gas. Both Jacob and Natalee were found dead by the first responders to the scene.

OSHA began an investigation two days later. The indictment alleges that Aghorn and Day obstructed the OSHA investigation, arising out of statements made by Day to OSHA in two separate interviews. If convicted, a federal district court judge will determine any sentence after considering the U.S. Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.