Despite the popular belief that working with gases is highly dangerous, the incidence of deaths and recordable injuries in the industrial gas Industry are relatively low and demonstrate the effectiveness of internal training and safety systems.
Statistics published by the European Industrial Gases Association (EIGA) shows that the Lost Time Injury rate (LTI) declined in Europe from over eight per million man-hours in 1992 to a low of just two in 2009.
For practical reasons, gases are stored and transported either under high pressure, or in liquefied form and this results in a concentration of potential energy. Various forms of energy are associated with industrial gases: mechanical energy is stored when gases are compressed to high pressure; and chemical energy is stored in flammable gas.
Cryogenic liquid gases represent the depletion rather than accumulation of thermal energy and form a super-cold refrigerant. Many gases, if released, will displace air or dilute the available oxygen therefore threatening asphyxiation while others are classified as toxic or corrosive.
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