Oil, gas and flame-resistant workwear

Oil and gas coveralls: we do not sell them. Here is how to buy them properly.

RigArmor makes 100% cotton coveralls with no flame-resistance certification. They are wrong for a refinery, a rig or any hot-work permit area, and we are not going to dress that up. What follows is what we know about buying certified FR properly — and one question we would like you to answer.

Answer the question See the standards

Straight answer first

What we make, and why it is wrong for your site

Our coveralls are 100% cotton in 175 gsm and 270 gsm, with reflective tape on the shoulders, upper sleeves and lower legs. The cotton is untreated. There is no flame-resistance certification behind it, and there is no certification of any other kind either.

Untreated cotton does not melt onto skin the way polyester does, and that is a genuine advantage in general industrial work. It is not flame resistance. Untreated cotton ignites and keeps burning. US OSHA puts it plainly in its guidance for electrical work: natural-fibre clothing will not melt, but it can ignite and continue to burn, and it does not meet the requirement where it can ignite under the arc and flame conditions present at the workplace. The one narrow allowance OSHA makes is for very low incident energy — at or below 2 cal/cm² — and nothing above that.

So: do not specify our coveralls for refineries or petrochemical plants, upstream or offshore oil and gas, tank farms, welding or hot work, or anywhere an arc-flash risk assessment applies. A cotton coverall will be turned away at the gate, and it should be.

If your site enforces a named FR standard, we are not your supplier. We would rather say that here than after you have paid us.

The thing most suppliers get wrong

Cotton can be flame resistant. Ours is not.

This distinction matters more than any other on this page, and it is the one buyers are most often misled about — in both directions.

Cotton can be made genuinely, certifiably flame resistant. It is done with a durable chemical process that reacts inside the fibre itself — the THPC ammonia-cure route and the organophosphorus route are the two long-established families. FR-treated cotton and FR cotton-nylon blends are certified to NFPA 2112 and to EN ISO 11612 every day, and they are the workhorse of the FR market, not a fringe product.

What that means for you: a supplier telling you "cotton cannot be flame resistant" is wrong, and a supplier telling you "our cotton is naturally flame resistant" is also wrong. The FR has to be put there by a durable process, and the garment has to carry third-party certification. Ours has neither. It is plain cotton, and it is sold as plain cotton.

The problem is not that our coveralls are cotton. The problem is that they are untreated.

Reading your PPE matrix

The four standards you will see on an oil and gas spec

Your induction pack, tender document or client PPE matrix will name one of these. They are not interchangeable, and a garment certified to one is not automatically compliant with another.

What each standard covers. Check which one your site actually names before you buy anything.
Standard	Hazard it addresses	What to ask for
NFPA 2112	Short-duration thermal exposure from fire — flash fire. The dominant spec on oil, gas and petrochemical sites.	Certification, not a test report. Third-party certification is mandatory and comes from an ISO/IEC 17065 accredited body — in practice UL Solutions or SEI.
EN ISO 11612	Heat and flame generally. Uses letter codes: A1 and A2 for limited flame spread, then B convective heat, C radiant heat, D molten aluminium, E molten iron, F contact heat.	The letters and the performance level behind each. "EN ISO 11612" on its own tells you almost nothing.
ISO 11611	Welding and allied processes. Class 1 for lower spatter and radiant heat, Class 2 for higher.	The class. A Class 1 garment on Class 2 work is a failed inspection.
ASTM F1506	Electric arc. The current standard covers flame resistant and arc-rated clothing for workers exposed to flames and electric arcs.	The arc rating in cal/cm², matched to your own arc-flash study. The standard does not do the risk assessment for you.

On NFPA 2112, the test behind the certificate is an instrumented manikin exposure under ASTM F1930 — three seconds of flame, with predicted second and third degree body burn required to stay at or below 50%. The vertical flame test must still pass after 100 industrial launderings. That is the bar. NFPA 2113 is the companion standard covering how the garments are then selected, used and maintained.

In the United States, arc-rated clothing selection is worked through NFPA 70E, but the legally enforceable requirement sits in OSHA 29 CFR 1910.269 and 1926 Subpart V. NFPA 70E is the consensus standard employers use to comply with those, not the law itself.

Language that should stop you

There is no such thing as an NFPA-approved garment

NFPA writes the standard. It does not certify anything against it. In NFPA's own words, it does not list, certify, test or inspect products, designs or installations for compliance, and any statement of compliance is the responsibility of the certifier or the maker — not NFPA.

The same is true of OSHA, which states that it does not test, approve, certify or endorse any equipment, product or procedure. Neither body approves garments, so no garment from any supplier can be OSHA approved or NFPA approved. Those phrases describe something that does not exist.

The only accurate phrasing is certified to NFPA 2112 by UL Solutions, or by SEI — a named standard, and a named accredited body that issued the certificate.

There is a second trap underneath this one. A test report is not a certification. A mill can send a fabric to a lab, get a passing report, and that report says nothing about whether the finished garment is certified. NFPA 2112 certification covers the garment and includes factory auditing. Ask which one you are being shown.

A supplier holding real certification produces the certificate in minutes. It is a document, and they have it.

Due diligence

How to check an FR claim in three questions

These work on any supplier, including one that is not us. If the answers do not come back cleanly, you are looking at marketing.

Which standard, and which class or rating?

"Flame resistant" is not an answer. NFPA 2112 is an answer. EN ISO 11612 A1 B1 C1 is an answer. ISO 11611 Class 2 is an answer. An arc rating in cal/cm² is an answer.

Who issued the certificate, and what is its number?

Ask for the certification body and the certificate number, not a lab report. For NFPA 2112 that means UL Solutions or SEI. For EN ISO 11612 it means a notified body. Then check the number against that body's own register.

How many wash cycles was it certified for?

NFPA 2112 tests after 100 industrial launderings. EN ISO 11612 tests against whatever cycle count the manufacturer declares — which can be low. Ask for the declared number, because that is the working life of the protection.

The price tell

There is a fourth check, and it is the fastest one. Certification costs money, so certified garments cost money. As a manufacturer sourcing in this region we see the spread constantly.

Indicative FOB per-piece figures observed in the Asian wholesale market, August 2026. These are our own observations, not published rates — they move with cotton price, fabric weight, order quantity and certification tier.
Garment	Indicative FOB	What it tells you
Plain cotton coverall, basic	US$4–6	No certification, no claim to any.
Plain cotton, mid-spec or custom	US$8.50–14	Where our own garments sit. Still no certification.
"FR" at US$8–16	US$8–16	Claiming NFPA 2112 or EN 11612 at this price should be treated as unverified until the certificate appears.
Certified FR cotton-nylon, NFPA 2112	US$18–28	Roughly where genuinely third-party-certified product starts.

Put simply, a certified FR coverall costs somewhere between two and a half and four times a comparable plain cotton one. If someone is offering you certified FR at plain-cotton money, the certificate is the thing to ask for, and the conversation usually ends there.

Nobody tells you this at the quote stage

FR can be washed out of a garment

If you buy certified FR-treated cotton, the protection depends on how it is laundered. Get this wrong and you have a certified garment that no longer performs, with nothing visible to tell you. Fabric makers are specific about it:

No chlorine bleach. Not on its own, and not inside a detergent that contains it.
No hydrogen peroxide. Same rule, same reason.
Detergent, not soap. Soaps leave flammable deposits in the fabric.
Soft water. Hard water leaves deposits and stops soil being properly removed.
No fabric softener, no starch. Both add a flammable film on top of the FR fabric.

Worth building into your contract: if the garments go to a commercial laundry, the laundry needs to know they are FR and needs to follow this. It is a common and entirely invisible way for a compliant crew to stop being compliant.

Southeast Asia

None of our three markets has its own FR mark

Buyers sometimes look for a local approval on FR clothing. As far as we can establish, there is not one to look for — in all three markets, the specification falls back to the international standards above.

Singapore

Performance-based, not prescriptive

The Workplace Safety and Health Act 2006 places a duty on the employer to take reasonably practicable measures, and is written around outcomes rather than approved product lists. We found no Singapore Standard covering heat and flame protective clothing, and no MOM approval scheme for it. Buyers here specify EN ISO 11612 or NFPA 2112 directly.

Malaysia

An approval scheme exists, but not for FR clothing

DOSH operates a mandatory PPE approval scheme, certified through SIRIM QAS International. Its published categories cover head, foot, hearing, eye, hand, respiratory and body protection in the sense of harnesses and lifelines. Flame-resistant clothing is not among the listed categories, so international certification is again what buyers specify.

Philippines

No local mark replaces international certification

RA 11058 and DOLE DO 198-18 place the duty on the employer to provide appropriate PPE. There is no FR-specific national certification mark that substitutes for NFPA 2112 or EN ISO 11612. If a certification question is material to your tender, confirm the current position with DOLE directly rather than taking a supplier's word for it — including ours.

The question

One question, and it decides whether we build this

Here is our honest position. We are a cotton coverall manufacturer. If we ever add a certified FR line, FR-treated cotton is the obvious route for us, because it is the fabric family we already work in and it is genuinely certifiable to NFPA 2112 and EN ISO 11612.

Whether we do it is an open question. It is not in development, there is no launch date, and we are not taking your details for a waiting list. What would actually move the decision is knowing which standard the sites in this region really enforce — because certifying to the wrong one is an expensive way to end up with stock nobody can use.

Tell us what your site enforces

If you have thirty seconds, this is more useful to us than any market report we could buy. No sales follow-up unless you ask for one.

Which standard and class your PPE matrix names — NFPA 2112, EN ISO 11612 with its letters, ISO 11611, an arc rating.
Who enforces it — your own policy, a client's, or a regulator's.
Roughly how many garments a year, and in which country.

Send us your standard

If FR turns out not to be what you need after all, say so and we will tell you honestly whether our cotton coveralls fit.

In the meantime

What we can actually supply today

Plenty of work in and around the oil and gas supply chain carries no FR mandate at all — yards, warehouses, workshops, logistics, fabrication away from hot work, and the crews who never enter a permit area. For that work our cotton coveralls are a straightforward, well-made option: 100% cotton in 175 gsm or 270 gsm, sizes M to 5XL, six colours, reflective tape on the shoulders, upper sleeves and lower legs.

We are factory-direct from Singapore, there is no minimum order, and we will put your logo on a single unit so you can put it on a real person before you commit. There is more on the industrial coveralls page, on custom logo coveralls, and in our FAQs. If reflective tape is what your site actually asked for rather than certified hi-vis, the high-visibility page explains that difference too.

Only buy from us if plain cotton is genuinely right for the job. That is the whole offer.

Questions we get

Oil, gas and FR: common questions

Are your coveralls certified for oil and gas industry standards?

No. They are 100% untreated cotton and hold no certification to NFPA 2112, EN ISO 11612, ISO 11611 or ASTM F1506. They should not be used on any site that mandates flame-resistant clothing. This page used to say otherwise. It was wrong, and we have corrected it.

Is there such a thing as an OSHA-approved or NFPA-approved coverall?

No, from any supplier. Neither body approves products. OSHA states that it does not test, approve, certify or endorse any equipment, product or procedure, and NFPA states that it does not list, certify, test or inspect products for compliance. Certification comes from independent accredited bodies — for NFPA 2112, UL Solutions or SEI.

Can cotton coveralls be flame resistant?

Yes, if the cotton has been through a durable FR treatment and the garment holds third-party certification. FR-treated cotton and FR cotton-nylon blends are certified to NFPA 2112 and EN ISO 11612 routinely. Our cotton is untreated, so ours are not.

Does untreated cotton self-extinguish?

No. That claim appears on a lot of workwear sites and it is not true. Untreated cotton ignites and continues to burn. Its one real advantage over polyester is that it does not melt onto skin, which is a different property from flame resistance.

What does a certified FR coverall cost compared with a plain one?

Roughly two and a half to four times as much, on the FOB figures we see in this region. If a supplier quotes certified FR at close to plain-cotton pricing, ask for the certificate number and the issuing body before going any further.

Are you developing a flame-resistant range?

Not currently. It is an open question rather than a project, and we would rather say that than run a waiting list for a product that does not exist. If enough buyers tell us which standard their sites enforce, that is what would tip the decision.

Do you ship to Singapore, Malaysia and the Philippines?

Yes, for the cotton coveralls we do make. Sea freight is standard, air freight is available on request, and every consignment carries a Form E certificate of origin so qualifying ASEAN buyers clear customs at 0% duty instead of the standard 10–30% band. Lead time is six to eight weeks including branding.

Tell us what your site requires.

If it is certified FR, we cannot supply it and we will say so plainly — but knowing which standard you are held to genuinely shapes what we build next. If it is general industrial work, we can quote you today.

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