Their fridges are normally filled with snacks and comfort foods to keep them going during their weeks spent offshore.
But companies in the oil and gas industry are now installing additional fridges specifically for workers to store weight loss medication, with up to 60 per cent taking the jabs to avoid being sacked for being overweight.
As of Sunday, no employee weighing more than 19st 7lb (124kg), fully clothed, will be able to board a helicopter bound for the rigs. The policy has been introduced to ensure workers can be winched to safety in an emergency, with industry leaders confident it ‘will save lives’.
Graham Skinner, health, safety and security manager for industry body Offshore Energies UK, estimated that between 240 and 300 workers have yet to meet the new weight threshold.
But that number, he said, has reduced significantly from around 800 two months ago, with workers using a range of measures to get trim.
Those who fail to shed the pounds face losing their jobs or being redeployed in other roles.
Oil rig workers weighing more than 19st 7lb (124kg), fully clothed, will not be able to board a helicopter bound for the rigs
Mr Skinner said there were reports of ‘up to 60 per cent of offshore personnel’ using weight loss jabs to meet the target on time.
And he said: ‘Some companies have installed additional fridges for the storage of the medication because there’s so many of the workers who are taking that.’
He admitted that ‘complexities around the medical aspects’ of weight loss jabs, which can include Ozempic and Mounjaro, was one reason they avoided promoting them as a ‘core tool’.
But he said: ‘We have seen wide uptake by our workforce anyway, so we didn’t think that there was any real barrier to workers choosing to use that.’
Mr Skinner, who led by example by slimming down himself, conceded that anyone unable to meet the target weight might be ‘encouraged to challenge a new policy such as this’.
But he said the ‘vast majority of workers w were ‘very pleased with the introduction of the weight limit’, adding: ‘They have often sat next to larger people in a helicopter and worried when they would get out. They’ve looked at larger workers and thought ‘how would we manage to rescue you?’.
He added: ‘Ultimately it is a safety policy and it relates to capability, so if someone cannot mobilise for their work because they are over the weight limit then they will not be able to work. In the worst cases that would mean some would lose their job.’
The RMT union, however, was concerned it could provide employers with a ‘convenient mechanism’ to sack workers without proper redundancy procedures.
General secretary Eddie Dempsey said: ‘Nobody disputes that safety must be the overriding priority when working offshore.
'However, safety policies must be proportionate, evidence-based and developed through meaningful consultation with the workers they affect.’
