SM Energy Accident Attorneys
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SM Energy Company is an oil and natural gas exploration company that was founded over 100 years ago. Its assets are in the Eagle Ford Group and the Permian Basin, and as of the end of 2020, SM Energy had an estimated 404 million barrels of oil equivalent (petroleum, natural gas, and natural gas liquids) in reserves. The company had 504 employees, produced 126,900 barrels of oil equivalent per day, and earned $1.126 billion in revenue in 2020. Its total assets are estimated at nearly $5 billion.
Headquartered in Denver, Colorado, SM Energy’s operations are in Texas. As of the end of 2020, the company had 1,188 producing wells in the Eagle Ford Shale and Permian Basin.
SM Energy’s History of Oil & Natural Gas Production in the U.S.
SM Energy’s story began in 1900 when Chester Congdon and associates purchased 17,800 acres of land in St. Mary Parish, Louisiana for $11,000. The investor group hoped to use the land for several purposes, including oil production, salt mining, and agriculture, and they certified the St. Mary Parish Land Company as a Minnesota corporation in 1908. In 1915, the St. Mary Parish Land Company dissolved the Minnesota corporation and incorporated in Delaware.
In 1930, a well-known geologist issued a positive report on the St. Mary Parish land, and the company began granting exploration and lease rights. Initial attempts at oil exploration failed, but in 1938, Texaco completed the first successful oil find after leasing acreage in Horseshoe Bayou. This signified the St. Mary Parish Land Company’s entrance into oil and gas exploration.
Over the next several decades, the St. Mary Parish Company continued to lease acreage and expanded as well, investing in and partnering with other oil and gas exploration companies. The company changed its name to St. Mary Land & Exploration Company and went public at the end of 1992.
In 1994, St. Mary Land & Exploration Company purchased approximately 30,000 acres of land in the Permian Basin. St. Mary continued to acquire other companies and expand, eventually moving into the Maverick Basin and the Eagle Ford Shale in 2009.
In 2010, the company changed its name to SM Energy Company, under which it still operates today.
SM Energy Oil Rig Accident Reports
Oil and natural gas exploration are dangerous undertakings. However, this does not excuse well blowouts, fires, explosions, and other incidents that injure workers and harm the environment.
Through the years, SM Energy has seen its fair share of accidents, such as:
- A 2010 incident involving oil that surged from a well owned by SM Energy for about 8 hours, blackening 15 acres of ranch land about 15 miles northeast of Cheyenne, Wyoming.
- A 2012 fire at an oil well east of Cheyenne. Flames reached about 150 feet into the air after an oil treater overflowed and was ignited at the site.
- A worker who was injured in a serious slip and fall accident caused by liquid that had leaked from a container on the oil rig where he was working.
- A worker whose eye was injured by a spark while welding. The worker did not have proper eye protection to guard against injury.
- A worker who fell from a height while performing a repair on a rig. He was wearing a harness, but proper safety precautions were not in place, and he fell as a result.
Talk to an Oilfield Injury Lawyer
If you were injured while working for SM Energy in any capacity, you have a tough road ahead of you. You can’t rely on your employer to treat you fairly, and there’s no guarantee that they will pay your claim or provide other benefits that will help you get back on your feet. Too often, oil and gas companies like SM Energy do the opposite. They treat their workers as liabilities that need to be swept under the rug, underpaying claims, and even denying payment or firing workers who cannot return to the field. This is why you need an oilfield accident lawyer.
At Arnold & Itkin, we fight to expose this kind of behavior. We help injured oilfield workers and their families by recovering the full and complete compensation they need for medical treatment, ongoing care, lost earnings, emotional trauma, and so much more. This makes every difference as they put their lives back together.
Don’t let the company escape their responsibility to help after an oilfield accident or injury. Call (888) 493-1629 today!