What’s it like to live near a refinery?

The Baker Panel's report on the safety culture at BP's North American refineries prompted Lisa Margonelli to discuss in the NY Times Pipeline blog (Times Select required) what its like for Texans to live in the midst of the refineries that supply the nation's gasoline

Winifred J. Hamilton, the director of environmental health at Baylor College of Medicine, in Houston, described it to me like this: “When I go to Texas City, people tell me about the incredible sound of the flares and the smell that they say gives them headaches. They say that being told to ’shelter in place’ when there’s an emergency, particularly when they don’t know what’s going on, makes them anxious. And if the children are in school and the family members are home, putting wet towels under the doors, they’re separated from their children, and the stress and fear is immense. Even day-to-day life involves unusual worries — Is it safe to eat the vegetables in my garden?”

Hamilton said that despite the pollution produced by the refineries, many people in the area are ambivalent about leaving. “People have block parties and old trees,” she said. “They don’t want to move.” When I asked her about the Texas City accident, she said, “Well, headlines are about people who die, but the survivors often lose their fingers, toes, noses or ears, and they spend years in pain and at risk of infection. Some of them have to wear a ski mask. They’re lost in the statistics, basically, but their lives are deeply changed.”

While Californians vehemently oppose offshore drilling, and American environmentalists protest drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, residents of Texas can’t afford a not-in-my-backyard attitude. Texans sometimes excuse the odor of chemicals in their neighborhoods with the remark that it “smells like money.” To some extent they’re struggling to balance their livelihoods against unknown health risks. For the rest of us who drive, or for that matter, use lipstick, floor wax, plastic, antihistamines or any of the other products derived from petroleum at Gulf Coast plants, Texas is so far away we don’t associate it with our backyards at all.

And Texas, being Texas, makes things just a bit worse than other parts of the country:

local emissions standards are extraordinarily loose, partly because of the petrochemical industry’s influence in local politics. A 2004 investigation by the Houston Chronicle found levels of toxic chemicals in some neighborhoods high enough to trigger a federal investigation — if they were found at a hazardous waste dump. The Texas Commission on Environmental Quality is now rewriting its allowable limits of toxic emissions, but has stated that the acceptable cancer risk is likely to end up at around 10 times the guidelines set by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The level of carcinogens released in the processing of a barrel of oil is higher in Texas than anywhere else in the country, said Eric Schaeffer, a former regulator for the E.P.A. who’s now with the Environmental Integrity Project. “A release of chemicals in L.A. gets a strong reaction from California regulators,” he told me. “The same release in Corpus Cristi doesn’t — there just isn’t the same tradition of enforcement.”

Straw Men: More Thoughts On The Baker BP Panel

I reported yesterday on the release of the Baker Panel's 374 page report on the sad state of BP's safety system at its North American refineries. I want to go back and discuss on aspect of the report and the panel's press conference: The assertion that BP deliberately endangered workers by cutting costs in its safety budget.

CNN-Money.com, for example, argued that the report

found no evidence that BP intentionally scrimped on safety in order to cut costs - a charge that has been disputed by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board.

Reuters reported that:

A panel investigating the 2005 deadly explosion at BP's Texas City, Texas refinery (sic) said on Tuesday that the oil major did not purposely withhold spending for safety programs at its U.S. oil refineries

***

"We could not determine that BP ever purposefully withheld resources with respect to safety-related practices," Baker said at a press conference in Houston.

The report itself stated diplomatically:

During the course of its review, the Panel did not develop or identify sufficient information to conclude whether BP ever intentionally withheld resources on any safety-related assets or projects for budgetary or cost reasons. The Panel believes, however, that the company did not always ensure that adequate resources were effectively allocated to support or sustain a high level of process safety performance.

But all of this talk about intentionally cutting safety is what's known as "setting up a straw man" -- creating a position that is easy to refute, then attributing that position to the opponent. It's an argument frequently heard when employers defend themselves against being blamed for workplace accidents, and to fight calls for criminal prosecutions: "No one intended to hurt anyone, we just didn't know," or "We may have overlooked some things, but we never meant to hurt anyone." Drunk drivers don't intend to kill families on their way home from the party either. But try telling that to the judge.

And no one, including the Chemical Safety Board, has accused BP of intentionally cutting safety or deliberately trying to hurt workers. The CSB did present convincing evidence that the company cut back on maintenance and infrastructure that "caused a progressive deterioration of safety at the Texas City refinery" and that company officials knew about many of the safety problems at the plant.

"BP implemented a 25% cut on fixed costs from 1998 to 2000 that adversely impacted maintenance expenditures and infrastructure at the refinery," she said. Maintenance spending fell throughout the 1990?s at the then-Amoco refinery, and following the merger with BP further cuts were imposed. "Every successful corporation must contain its costs. But at an aging facility like Texas City, it is not responsible to cut budgets related to safety and maintenance without thoroughly examining the impact on the risk of a catastrophic accident."

By 2002, an internal BP report had identified the cost reductions as contributing to a decline of infrastructure in Texas City that would require significant investment to correct. These findings were corroborated in a survey of the refinery's safety culture in 2005 just prior to the accident, known as the Telos study. The survey interview with the Texas City refinery manager identified a history of decapitalization and a culture of "things not getting fixed."

"The refinery manager was not alone in this candid assessment," Chairman Merritt said. "Large majorities of the survey respondents reported significant maintenance backlogs that were harming safety. Disturbingly, most employees agreed that 'production and budget compliance gets recognized and rewarded before anything else at Texas City.'"

Economic pressures were evident in numerous decisions that were causally related to the March 23, 2005, accident.

The Houston Chronicle summarized some of the results of the failure to ensure that adequate resources were provided for vital safety-related functions:

• In the Texas City, Carson and Whiting plants, known equipment problems such as thinning pipes and vessels went unrepaired for months, even years. In Texas City, nearly 200 thickness defects were unaddressed for up to eight years, for example.
  
• In all refineries except Texas City, the consultants found that BP's tests of critical alarms and "emergency shutdown devices" were either improperly conducted or overdue.
  
• "Action items" resulting from audits or near-miss investigations intended to improve safety often went uncompleted for months or even years, or were overlooked altogether at all five refineries. For example, in Carson about half of the action items generated between 2001 and 2004 remained open at the time of the team's visit last spring. At Toledo and Whiting, some items were left uncorrected for more than a year.
  
• At all refineries, BP did not adequately inspect important refinery process equipment, resulting in extensive backlogs. "Some of these backlogs included hundreds of items overdue for long periods (i.e years)," the report said. In Texas City, nearly 400 pressure vessels, piping, relief valves, storage tanks and other pieces of equipment were overdue, for example.
  
• After discovering dangerous problems in the pressure relief systems in Whiting, the team found similar problems in Carson, Texas City and Toledo, as well as a lack of understanding of the risks involved.
  
• Near misses at all five refineries were not properly investigated, and in some cases not even reported. The team found that "BP was systematically missing opportunities to learn from near misses."

All of which makes me a bit skeptical about outgoing BP CEO Lord John Browne's statement:

Brown defended the company's record. "We've never focused on profits above safety -- safety has always come first" he said.

As Houston Chronicle business columnist Loren Steffy summarized the company's actions:

That's not to say it didn't care about safety or maintenance. It merely had other priorities.

And despite their protests, worker safety really wasn't one of them.

Baker Panel Report Blasts BP

The Baker Panel, investigating the "safety culture" at BP's five North American refineries, issued its 374 page report today blasting the giant oil company for putting production targets, operational goals and budgets ahead of workplace safety.

The report's origin was an urgent safety recommendation issued by the Chemical Safety Board which is conducting an extensive investigation of the March 23, 2005 Texas City refinery explosion that killed 15 workers and injured 180. It was the biggest American workplace disaster in a decade.

The panel found serious problems throught BP's facilities:

While some refineries are far more effective than others in promoting process safety, significant process safety culture issues exist at all five U.S. refineries, not just Texas City. Indeed, the refineries show some similar process safety cultural weaknesses, even though they do not share a unified process safety culture. The Panel found instances of a lack of operating discipline, tolerance of serious deviations from safe operating practices, and apparent complacency toward serious process safety risks at each
refinery.

Among the findings of the report were BP's emphasis on "personal safety" (a.k.a. slips, trips, and falls) over process safety

BP has not provided effective leadership in making certain its management and U.S. refining workforce understand what is expected of them regarding process safety performance. BP has emphasized personal safety in recent years and has achieved significant improvement in personal safety performance, but BP did not emphasize process safety. BP mistakenly interpreted improving personal injury rates as an indication of acceptable process safety performance at its U.S. refineries. BP’s reliance on this data, combined with an inadequate process safety understanding, created a false sense of confidence that BP was properly addressing process safety risks.

The panel emphasized the importance of process safety over personal safety

Not all refining hazards are caused by the same factors or involve the same degree of potential damage. Personal or occupational safety hazards give rise to incidents—such as slips, falls, and vehicle accidents—that primarily affect one individual worker for each occurrence. Process safety hazards can give rise to major accidents involving the release of potentially dangerous materials, the release of energy (such as fires and explosions), or both. Process safety incidents can have catastrophic effects and can result in multiple injuries and fatalities, as well as substantial economic, property, and environmental damage. Process safety refinery incidents can affect workers inside the refinery and members of the public who reside nearby. Process safety in a refinery involves the prevention of leaks, spills, equipment malfunctions, over-pressures, excessive temperatures, corrosion, metal fatigue, and other similar conditions. Process safety programs focus on the design and engineering of facilities, hazard assessments, management of change, inspection, testing, and maintenance of equipment, effective alarms, effective process control, procedures, training of personnel, and human factors. The Texas City tragedy in March 2005 was a process safety accident.

One of the more interesting parts of the report dealt with the resources that BP invested in safety. Preliminary findings of the Chemical Safety Board determined that cost cutting had led to safety problems at the Texas City plant. Yet BP claimed vindication in this area, citing the Baker Panel's conclusion that

it did not develop or identify sufficient information to conclude whether BP ever intentionally withheld resources on any safety-related assets or projects for budgetary or cost reasons.

The report went on to say, however, that

The Panel does not believe that BP has always ensured that the resources required for strong process safety performance at its U.S. refineries were identified and provided.

At the Texas City refinery, for example

From 1992 to the 1998 merger with BP, Amoco consistently and significantly cut costs in the Texas City refinery. Between 1992 and 1999, total maintenance spending fell 41 percent; from 1992 to 2000, total capital spending fell 84 percent.24 Notwithstanding this sustained period of budget cutting, after the merger BP issued a company-wide challenge to each of the refineries to cut their budgets an additional 25 percent without jeopardizing the integrity of the facility. According to at least one senior manager, progress toward meeting that challenge to cut costs 25 percent became a milestone in each refinery plant manager’s performance contract. Pursuant to that corporate challenge, Texas City continued to cut costs, 25 and some data indicate the refinery came close to meeting the 25 percent target.

The report accused BP of eliminating thousands of critical jobs after its merger with Amoco, , not replacing experienced workers who retired, losing engineers and other personnel with with valuable operating and technical expertise. There were also serious understaffing and fatigue problems at BP's North American refineries.

The panel also found safety management problems:

BP has not demonstrated that it has effectively held executive management and refining line managers and supervisors, both at the corporate level and at the refinery level, accountable for process safety performance at its five U.S. refineries.

In a response to the report, BP's Chief Executive, Lord John Browne announced that the company will implement the panel's recommendations. The BP response noted that the report did not put blame on any individuals, that no one acted in anything but good faith, that BP's not the only company with serious safety problems, and that the company has already implemented a number of the recommendations. And in a not necessarily unrelated development, Lord Browne announced last week that he will retire 18 months earlier than expected. Browne claimed that his early retirement was unrelated to the report.

The panel also made a number of recommendations focused around improving its process safety management system, and to improve its methods of measuring safety performance. The panel also recommended an independent monitor to report to the company’s board over a five-year period.

The Baker panel will not have the last word on the Texas City disaster.

The Chemical Safety Board expects to issue a report in March. Daniel Horowitz, a spokesman for the board, said yesterday that the Baker panel's report showed that many things contribute to accidents like the one in Texas City. "It is a very significant finding that BP does not effectively investigate incidents throughout the corporation," he said. "If you're not learning from near misses, you're not in a position to prevent major disasters like the one in Texas City."

More BP stories here.

BP Texas City: More Evidence That Neglegence Led To Explosion

The Wall St. Journal today reports on a series of internal "accountability reviews" of the 2005 explosion at BP's Texas City refinery that killed 15 workers and injured 180. The Chemical Safety Board reported earlier this year that cost-cutting at BP had contributed to the accident. The interviews cited by the Wall St. Journal seem to confirm those contentions.

BP had originally blamed the accident on workers' failure to follow procedures and reassigned the plant manager, Don Parus. Parus didn't have kind words for BP's upper management. Parus said

he had been ordered to cut costs by 25% as recently as 2005, according to notes of an interview conducted Oct. 12.

He said he had given a slide show to [BP's global chief executive, John]Manzoni during a visit by the executive in July 2004 showing BP and Amoco had "underinvested" at Texas City for the previous 10 years, according to the interview notes. He said he pleaded for additional funds, citing problem areas such as the poor condition of equipment, and he said he had "exhausted every avenue he had to get the funds and it remained a no," according to the notes.

An attorney for Mr. Parus said his client stands by what he said in the interviews but wasn't available to comment.

Ross Pillari, who stepped down as chief executive of BP's U.S. operations this year, said Texas City had been neglected, according to a BP interview on April 27. Senior BP-Amoco executives at the time of the merger "tried to squeeze as much out of [Texas City], so maintenance was neglected. The directive was to keep expenditures low because of 10 years of lousy refinery margins," according to a summary of his interview. Refinery margins are an industry measure of profitability. Mr. Pillari declined to comment.

And BP CEO Lord Browne wasn't much help either:

In addition to BP's management structure, one executive also cited Lord Browne's attitude toward safety. In an interview conducted on June 21, Greg Coleman, who was vice president of BP's health, safety and environmental programs before he left the company, said Lord Browne "showed little interest" in safety and demonstrated "no passion, no curiosity, no interest" in safety issues, according to his interview notes.

Poor Lord Browne, "repeatedly voted the best businessman in Britain." has had a very bad couple of years, according to Britain's Daily Telegraph, leading observers to wonder whether or not he will be able to stay on until his announced retirement date at the end of 2008:

The first signs that not all was well came in March, when 200,000 barrels of oil spilled onto the Prudhoe Bay tundra from a leaking pipeline. It appeared to be an isolated incident, but it set off a chain of events that led to the realisation that miles of pipes were dangerously corroded. In August, almost half the field had to be shut down.

BP faces a criminal investigation as well as inquiries by regulators and Congressional investigations into its maintenance record, amid allegations that the company neglected its infrastructure for years to boost profits.

In many aspects, what has happened in Alaska merely mirrored what was going on thousands of miles to the south in Texas City, where a refinery explosion killed 15 people and injured scores of others in 2005.

BP settled lawsuits with the families of those killed, but not before a report from the Chemical Safety Board catalogued years of unheeded warnings about the potential for disaster at the site. The regulator claimed that management was sub-standard, unsafe and antiquated equipment was not replaced and maintenance was deficient.

A website set up by lawyers for one of those whose parents were killed in the blast is publishing ever more damaging documents that show that Lord Browne himself knew of the poor safety record at the refinery, where workers feared for their lives every day and where even its managers admitted equipment was patched together with "band aids and super glue".

But if those are the two incidents that have generated the most headlines, they merely head an ever growing list of problems filling Lord Browne's in-tray.

The company was forced to admit that production at its Thunderhorse platform in the Gulf of Mexico would have to be delayed again after more problems were discovered.

BP's trading operations face criminal and civil investigations into whether the company has purposely manipulated the crude oil, petrol and propane markets.

Just yesterday the company found itself on the wrong end of a Supreme Court ruling over royalty rates that could see it forced to pay millions of dollars, on top of $30m of back taxes.

That pales into insignificance compared with the $1.4bn tax bill BP's Russian joint venture was forced to pay the Kremlin this month. The Russian government, in a bid to exert its control over its energy resources, is also threatening to withdraw some of BP-TNK's licences, ostensibly on environmental grounds.

More BP stories here.

BP's Lord John Browne: Guilty Of Shameful Neglect

Poor Lord John Browne. You gotta feel sorry for him. Here he is "peer of the realm, a captain of industry, a lover of fine cigars and a wealthy man" but, as the Guardian says, his biographers will directly associate him with

one of the most shameful cases of neglect in the history of British business -
the Texas City refinery disaster.

All because 15 workers were killed and 180 injured on his watch.

And, according to the Guardian, "on his watch" is more than a figurative term. According to company documents, Lord Browne was specifically monitoring safety conditions at the BP refinery before the explosion occurred. According to a message written by Texas City's learning and development manager, Dennis Link,

"We have 18 BP refineries in the world. Lord Browne looks at monthly data for 17 of 18 refineries all together. He looks at TCR [Texas City refinery] data separately each and every month!

This was one of the documents released as a result of a settlement with BP by Eva Rowe, both of whose parents were killed in the Texas City explosion.

The Guardian doesn't have many nice things to say about BP or Browne:

Accidents can happen at the best of companies. But documents prised out of BP by bereaved families' lawyers show just how ashamed we should be of Britain's largest enterprise.

There had been 23 deaths at the plant in 30 years. The local fire brigade says there were 50 infernoes a year - one a week.

The blowdown drum that exploded had been involved in eight previous scares.

The refinery's director, Don Parus, felt the place was patched up with "Band Aids and super glue". He told a confidential safety commission before the accident that "killing somebody every 18 months seems to be acceptable at this site" and wondered why his staff turned up for work: "Why would people take the risk, based on the risk of not going home?"

The US Chemical Safety Board has accused BP of a "cheque book mentality" towards safety. Texas City made profits for the company of nearly $1bn annually. Yet BP ordered local managers to slash costs by 25%.

The training budget at Texas City was reduced virtually to nothing. There was no money for a new emergency response system, which BP's fire manager insisted was needed.

The Guardian seems to think that Browne's £3.3m Chief Executive salary last year means that he has "a duty of care to his employees."

I'd say he should have the same duty if he were only paid 1/3 that amout.

BP: Bad To Worse To....

It must being brought down to earth when you've become accostomed to being a corporate master of the universe. BP is learning -- very slowly -- that it may, in fact, be subject to the same laws as mere mortals.

BP has not been living up to it promises to pay the medical bills of victims of the March 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers and injured 180, and BP is ignoring its responsibility to maintain the plant. These accusations come from explosion victims who had previously settled claims with the company.

And a circuit court judge think they have a point.District

judge Susan Criss said that allegations that BP had cut corners in maintaining its refinery were "quite valid." Her comments came in a hearing Friday morning brought by plaintiffs who had previously settled claims with the London-based oil giant.

***

Judge Criss also ruled that BP will need to provide testimony from two corporate representatives that it has paid the medical bills in question. A lawyer defending BP argued that the corporate representatives have had "very little knowledge" of the allegedly unpaid bills.

Meanwhile, the giant petroleum company is being accused of spying on Eva Rowe and her attorney. Rowe is the daughter of two victims of the Texas City explosion. She settled her lawsuit with BP on the eve of her trial.

BP’s defense team hired private investigators to gather information on a 22-year-old woman whose parents were killed in the 2005 explosions at the Texas City refinery, court records state.

BP’s defense attorneys hired private investigators to keep tabs on Eva Rowe, members of her legal team and the girlfriends of some of the plaintiff’s attorneys, according to court records.

The court documents also state that BP’s defense team gathered “party” photos of lead plaintiff’s attorney Brent Coon. Coon accused BP of spying and said the energy company’s legal team issued subpoenas to the plaintiff’s attorneys’ girlfriends, as well as one of his ex-girlfriends, for the trial that never happened.

BP acknowledged its defense team hired private investigators “to gather information that could be relevant at trial” but denied that its investigators did anything unethical or illegal.

BP spokesman Ronnie Chappel wasn't able to explain why it was relevant to gather photos and information on opposing attorneys or Rowe’s background, but described it as “legal and a common and longstanding practice in civil litigation.” (especially when you're a little person messing with big powerful corporations.)

Judge Criss (see above) was not amused at BP's excuses.

According to the records, Judge Susan Criss, the presiding judge of all the civil cases from the explosions, chastised the defense lawyers and warned them against any shenanigans.

The judge then rejected the defense team’s attempts to subpoena girlfriends of Coon and his associates and said she wouldn’t allow them to be called as witnesses.

The surveillance so enraged Coon that at one point he filed a motion to have sanctions brought against the BP legal team. That motion was summarily sealed when Rowe agreed to the terms of her settlement.

More BP stories here.

BP: More Workplace Safety Problems

BP continues to have serious workplace safety problems. The giant petroleum company that killed 15 workers and injured 180 in an explosion at its Texas City refinery in 2005 has just confirmed two recent contractor fatalities.

The first fatality occurred on the Alaskan North Slope on Nov. 13, when a worker walking across a drill pad apparently fell, striking his head, said BP spokesman Ronnie Chappell.

The second man died Nov. 17, after the drilling of a well in Eastern Oklahoma had been completed. That contract worker was helping to prepare the rig to be moved when he also sustained a fatal head-injury.

The two accidents, which haven't been previously reported, follow a long chain of recent problems that include a major refinery explosion and a pair of major oil spills in Alaska.

All 15 fatalities in Texas City were also contractors.

Meanwhile, the company has also received $384,000 in fines from Indiana OSHA for safety violations at their refinery in Whiting, Indiana.

The office cited the British oil company for 14 violations, ranging from inadequate record-keeping to not correcting problems with relief-valve systems at the plant.

A BP spokesman said the company already has addressed more than half of the violations, none of which was the result of worker injury or environmental damage, and is working to resolve the rest.

BP received a 21.3 million penalty for violations relating to the Texas City explosion, and last April OSHA fined the company $2.4 million for violations at a Toledo, Ohio, refinery.

More BP stories here.

Daughter Of Two BP Victims Settles Lawsuit

Eva Rowe, whose mother and father were killed in the March 23, 2005 BP Texas City explosion along with 13 other workers has reached a settlement with BP last week. Rowe's was the only case involving a fatality that had not been settled. She had said that she was suing the company to find out the truth behind why her parents are dead. Although all the terms of the total settlement was not released, some details are known:

Also as part of the settlement, all claims against contractor J.E. Merit Constructors., which employed Rowe's parents, and Texas City plant manager Don Parus were dismissed.

In memory of James and Linda Rowe, $1 million will go to the cancer center at St. Jude's Children's Research Hospital in Memphis, a favorite charity of the Rowes, and to Hornbeck High School in Louisiana, where Linda Rowe had worked as a special education teacher's aide before moving to Texas.

BP also will make another $30 million in donations on behalf of the Rowes and the other 13 people who died in the explosion.

The biggest payments will be $12.5 million each to the burn unit at the University of Texas Medical Branch at Galveston, which treated 23 people injured in the first six hours after the Texas City blast, and to the Texas A&M University Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center, which works to prevent workplace injuries in the petrochemical industry.

The College of the Mainland in Texas City will receive $5 million for safety and process technology training for refinery and chemical plant workers.

But most important for Rowe was BP's promise to make potentially damaging records public.

Though every other wrongful death case against BP was settled in the past 18 months, Rowe had gone ahead because she wanted to hold the company responsible for the deaths of her parents, she has said.

She also said she wanted potentially damaging documents about BP safety practices to come to light during the trial.

Coon said, as a term of the settlement, those records will be made public. The process for releasing them is still being worked out, he said, but attorneys from his firm and BP will negotiate their disclosure.

The lessons learned from those records will set new industry standards and prevent future accidents, Coon said.

Rowe's attorney said she may have made peace with BP, but that doesn't mean she has forgiven them.

"I'll probably never say BP is a good company," she said.

More BP Texas City Explosion Stories

What's OSHA Doing About Refinery Safety? Not Enough

And while we're talking about Congressional oversight, a prime subject might be OSHA's weak efforts to ensure safety in our nation's petrochemical industry and how increased funding and inspection strategies might address the problem.

One finding of the US Chemical Safety Board's investigation into the March 2005 explosion at BP's Texas City refinery that killed 15 workers is the contribution of OSHA's lax enforcement.

The board’s chairwoman indicated that OSHA’s approach to workplace safety might be a bit shortsighted.

“It’s just like BP was focused on trips and falls and lost work-time incident rates,” said Carolyn Merritt, who chairs the Chemical Safety Board. “OSHA focused on that, and they’re not going to recognize, for instance, if (a company) cuts too far back in maintenance.”

Merritt said OSHA’s approach does not recognize the long-term potential for disaster due to poor maintenance or other lax process-safety measures.

TJ Aulds, writing in the Galveston Daily News notes that U.S. Secretary of Labor Elaine L. Chao recently released a report showing workplace injuries and illnesses to be at an all-time low, and credits "compliance assistance from the regulated companies, health and safety partnerships with labor groups and targeted, “aggressive” enforcement against bad actors" for the improvement. (More on that here.)

Although OSHA's inspections of petrochemical facilites has picked up recently, that increase is a result of the catastropic BP explosion and other small incidents. In fact, according to Aulds, it may be OSHA's reliance on self regulation that's causing the problems.

Department of Labor statistics obtained by The Daily News show that in OSHA’s Region 6, which includes Texas and four other states, the agency conducted 123 inspections of petrochemical facilities in three years, from Oct. 1, 2003, through Sept. 30, 2006.

The vast majority of those inspections would not be considered preventative. In fact, 91 were conducted as a result of an accident, referral or complaint.

The rest were either follow-ups to previous inspections or related to an accident, complaint or referral.

Forty-eight of all of the Region 6 inspections during that same three-year period were conducted by the Houston office, which has oversight of the petrochemical facilities in Galveston County.

From those inspections, OSHA issued only four non-injury or non-incident citations.

However, the rate of inspections has picked up dramatically in the Houston region since the blasts at BP.

The root cause of this problem is, of course, not lazy OSHA inspectors, according to Merritt:

“Listen, they are understaffed, under-funded and overworked,” she said. “It’s simply a big job, and OSHA doesn’t have the resources to do much more than it already is.”

And the cause of that problem lies in Washington D.C.

Nevertheless, OSHA has it's opinion and it's sticking the script, no matter how ridiculous it sounds:

“A strong, fair and effective enforcement program is a key part of OSHA’s overall approach to workplace safety and health,” said Elizabeth Todd, a spokeswoman for OSHA’s Region 6 office. “We have the resources we need to be effective. Our balanced approach to workplace safety and health is succeeding, and it’s validated by workplace injury, illness and fatality rates that are at their lowest levels, even as the work force continues to expand.”

Blah, blah, blah. Not everyone is fooled though.

That response drew a chuckle from Glenn Erwin, who heads the United Steelworkers workplace safety initiatives.

Erwin, a former Texas City resident and BP — then Amoco — employee, is also a member of the panel led by James Baker that is reviewing the safety culture of BP.

“There is never an incident that happens that doesn’t have precursors or warnings before it happens if industry and (regulators) would investigate,” said Erwin, a critic of programs that emphasize investigations only when injuries are involved.

“Companies should be required — and OSHA actively force them — to investigate every incident, no matter what the size and even if no one gets hurt or loses work time.”

Erwin said such measures wouldn’t likely take hold unless Congress gets involved.

Fewer people were killed in the Sago Mine accident “and it sent shock waves all the way through Congress,” said Erwin.

“They even had hearings on mine safety. BP didn’t have that shockwave. There were no hearings until you had that problem with Prudhoe Bay, (Alaska).

“Why was it there were not hearings on Capitol Hill as to why (the Texas City) incident was allowed to happen? It’s a double standard.”

Erwin credits the Chemical Safety Board with putting pressure on BP as well as on federal regulators.

“Had it not been for the CSB calling attention to this last year, Terry Shiavo would have been the only news, and we would have been a footnote,” he said. “Congress was so worried about that one woman’s life, but didn’t get at all bothered that 15 people were killed.”

Amen brother.

Daughter Sues BP To Learn Why Her Parents Died

The Guardian has a moving article about Eva Rowe, the daughter of James and Linda Rowe who died in the March 23, 2005 BP Texas City refinery explosion. Rowe has refused to settle with BP and is suing the company to find out the truth behind why her parents are dead.

James, 48, and Linda, 47, left a daughter, Eva, who believes safety failures at the huge BP plant in Texas contributed to the death of her parents. Her decision to launch a lawsuit against one of the world's most powerful corporations has led to the 22-year-old being compared to Erin Brockovich, the suburban mother who secured the largest settlement ever paid in a direct-action lawsuit in American history. But Eva has already turned down the offer of a compensation settlement by BP, claiming that only the scrutiny of a trial will ensure the world knows how and why her mother and father died.

***

Amid intense media interest, Rowe will allege that her mother and father died because failures in safety measures led to the explosion in March 2005 that killed 15 people and injured 170. In particular, she believes that cost-cutting may have compromised safety, a charge also denied by the oil company.

'BP's desire to save money killed my mum and dad,' she said in a Radio 4 documentary last week. 'To me, that is wrong. They could have not cut their costs so many years ago and fixed things and kept up their maintenance and they didn't. My parents are dead because of that.'

More BP Texas City Explosion Stories

US Agency Says Cost Cutting, Ignored Warnings Caused BP Explosion that Killed 15

How did a giant refinery with the lowest injury rate in its history -- nearly one-third the oil refinery sector average -- sustain the worst U.S. industrial accident in more than a decade? In a few words, they were measuring the wrong safety indicators, they were cutting the safety and maintenance budget while ignoring major warning signs.

Much more of the story is being told this week. After a devastating CBS "60 Minutes" report Sunday night where Chemical Safety Board Chair Carolyn Merritt told reporter Ed Bradley that BP management knew enough about Texas City's safety problems to have prevented the March 23, 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers and injured 170, the CSB has issued an even more disturbing interim report. The report has even more impact considering that the CSB is an independent federal agency charged with investigating industrial chemical accidents, and that the five Board members were appointed by President Bush.

In preliminary findings released today, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) stated that internal BP documents prepared between 2002 and 2005 revealed knowledge of significant safety problems at the Texas City refinery and at 34 other BP business units around the world – months or years prior to the March 2005 explosion that killed 15 workers, injured 180 others, and was the worst U.S. industrial accident in more than a decade.

Last October, the CSB released a preliminary report stating that The isomerization unit, the gasoline octane booster that exploded, should not have been started up on March 23, because of a history of problems and a malfunctioning level indicator, level alarm, and a control valve. In addition, the raffinate splitter tower that overflowed on March 23 had a history of abnormal startups that included recurrent high liquid levels and pressures. BP management was aware of these incidents and malfunctioning equipment, but had never acted on that knowledge.

But it turns out the situation was even worse, according to CSB lead investigator Don Holmstrom:

Mr. Holmstrom said that his team has now documented the occurrence of eight previous instances where flammable hydrocarbon vapors were discharged from the same blowdown drum between 1994 and 2004. In two of these incidents the blowdown system caught on fire. The eight incidents were not properly investigated, and appropriate corrective actions were not implemented. The investigation of a 1994 incident resulted in an action item to analyze the adequacy of the blowdown drum. The area superintendent was responsible for the completion of this item. However, the item was never finished, and management officials did not follow up to assure completion.

The explosion on March 23, 2005, was not the only major accident the Texas City refinery had experienced, CSB investigators said. The history of major accidents and fatalities at the plant was summarized in a meeting held in November 2004 by the refinery manager for 100 supervisors. He gave a sobering presentation entitled “Safety Reality” on the 23 deaths at the plant in the previous 30 years; on average, one worker had died every 16 months.

Measuring The Wrong Things

There are also important safety lessons to be learned from BP's safety program at the time of the incident. Basically, BP management was measuring the wrong things to determine whether or not the plant was "safe"

In 2004, BP Texas City had the lowest injury rate in its history, nearly one-third the oil refinery sector average. However, the injury rate does not take account of catastrophic hazards or distinguish between injuries and fatalities. That year, the refinery experienced three major accidents that resulted in a total of three fatalities. One of these accidents was a major process-related fire. In late 2004, following these major accidents and other near misses, the Texas City leadership was attempting to improve the refinery’s safety performance. Several years of audits and reports had identified serious safety system deficiencies. However, the safety initiatives that were undertaken focused largely on improving personnel safety – such as slips, trips and falls – rather than management systems, equipment design, and preventative maintenance programs to help prevent the growing risk of major process accidents.”

Of course, this might cause one to question OSHA's inspection targeting process, which is based on those same injury and illness statistics that failed to predict the possiblity of a major catastrophe.

Budget Cuts

The other problem, according to Merritt, was that BP's budget cuts compromised safety and workers' lives:.

Chairman Merritt stated that stringent budget cuts throughout the BP system caused a progressive deterioration of safety at the Texas City refinery. BP implemented a 25% cut on fixed costs from 1998 to 2000 that adversely impacted maintenance expenditures and infrastructure at the refinery,” she said. Maintenance spending fell throughout the 1990’s at the then-Amoco refinery, and following the merger with BP further cuts were imposed. “Every successful corporation must contain its costs. But at an aging facility like Texas City, it is not responsible to cut budgets related to safety and maintenance without thoroughly examining the impact on the risk of a catastrophic accident.

By 2002, an internal BP report had identified the cost reductions as contributing to a decline of infrastructure in Texas City that would require significant investment to correct. These findings were corroborated in a survey of the refinery’s safety culture in 2005 just prior to the accident, known as the Telos study. The survey interview with the Texas City refinery manager identified a history of decapitalization and a culture of “things not getting fixed.”

“The refinery manager was not alone in this candid assessment,” Chairman Merritt said. “Large majorities of the survey respondents reported significant maintenance backlogs that were harming safety. Disturbingly, most employees agreed that ‘production and budget compliance gets recognized and rewarded before anything else at Texas City.’”

Meanwhile, to top off the day, the Board issued new safety recommendations calling on the U.S. oil industry to improve safety practices for refinery pressure relief systems, eliminating the type of atmospheric vent that caused the hydrocarbon release and explosions.

The first recommendation calls on the American Petroleum Institute (API), a leading oil industry trade association that develops widely used safety practices, to change its Recommended Practice 521, Guide for Pressure Relieving and Depressuring Systems. The revised guidance should warn against using blowdown drums similar to those in Texas City, urge the use of inherently safer flare systems, and ensure companies plan effectively for large-scale flammable liquid releases from process equipment.

Further recommendations call on the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) to establish a national emphasis program promoting the elimination of unsafe blowdown systems in favor of safer alternatives such as flare systems. OSHA should also emphasize the need for companies to conduct accurate relief valves studies and use appropriate equipment for containing liquid releases, the Board said. A national emphasis program results in a concerted inspection and enforcement effort around a specific safety hazard.

OSHA had cited the Texas City refinery in 1992 for unsafe blowdown drums, but Amoco (which then owned the refinery) argued successfully that the blodown drums were in compliance with the API standard. If the API complies with the CSB recommendations, the standard would explicity warn against the use of blowdown drums.

BP was not in agreement with the CSB's findings. Although the company has "taken responsiblity for the explosion, a BP report blamed it on workers' failure to follow procedures and fired six workers shortly after the accident. According to the Wall St. Journal:

Ronnie Chappell, a BP spokesman, yesterday said the company stood by its findings. BP investigators "didn't find evidence of budgetary decisions which were an immediate cause or critical factor in this terrible tragedy," he said.

More BP Texas City Explosion Stories

BP Knew About Dangers At Refinery That Killed 15

Investigate almost any workplace disaster (or even small accidents) and you'll find that there were plenty of warning signs known to both workers and managers, but there was no existing management system to ensure that such warnings get addressed before disaster strikes. In addition, if you've been following the various investigations of the disaster -- from OSHA, as well as interim reports from the US Chemical Safety Board -- you know that plant managers had numerous warnings of unsafe conditions, malfunctioning equipment and previous "close calls."

So it was not too much of a surprise to hear in tonight's 60 Minutes that the managers at the BP Texas City Refinery that blew up last year, killing 15 and injuring 170, were aware of conditions that led to the deadly explosion.

60 Minutes examined internal BP documents confirming that John Manzoni, the company's executive in charge of refineries, was repeatedly warned by his own experts before the explosion about serious safety problems at the refinery. One report noted that the history of petroleum leaks at the facility near Galveston, Texas, created "the potential for a major site incident."

Manzoni has said under oath that he only became aware of serious safety concerns at the Texas City site on March 23, 2005, the day of the explosion. Asked in a videotaped deposition whether management was aware of the great risk to human life at the site, Manzoni replies: "I believe that ... nobody knew the level of risk at Texas City."

Carolyn Merritt, chair of the US Chemical Safety Board, an independent government agency that is investigating the tragedy, confirmed those findings and blamed it on budget cuts.

Carolyn Merritt, appointed by President Bush to be chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, says management at BP knew enough about Texas City's safety problems to have prevented the disaster.

"Absolutely," says Merritt to Bradley's question on whether the Texas City blast was preventable. "The problems that existed at BP Texas City were neither momentary nor superficial. They ran deep through that operation of a risk denial and a risk blindness that was not being addressed anywhere in the organization."

Merritt adds that she believes budget cuts at the facility were directly related to the accident. "Twenty-five percent of their fixed costs were cut and when you cut that much out of a budget ... Our investigation has shown that this was a drastic mistake," she says.

Merritt stressed that the incident was preventable:

"There were three pieces of key instrumentation that were actually supposed to be repaired that were not repaired, and the management knew this," reveals Merritt. She says BP management authorized the operation that ultimately resulted in the blast, knowing the three pieces of equipment were not working properly.

What's more, she says, the company violated its own policy when it allowed trailers for workers to be placed so near potentially dangerous operations — perhaps the single biggest lapse that led to the deaths and injuries.

"These things do not have to happen. They are preventable. They are predictable, and people do not have to die because they're earning a living."

Another financial analyst on the program also discussed how it was understandable that BP would make some budget cuts after buying Amoco several years ago, but he asked at what point to you go beyond normal cost-cutting before you're into "reckless behavior?" And another expert noted that the plant was making $1 billion a year. It would have been a few million to correct the problems that had come to their attention. "But would you rather make $1 billion or $998 million?"

The most moving part of the program was the interview with Linda Rowe, who lost both parents in the Texas City explosion. Although the families of the other fatalities have settled with BP, Rowe insists on going to trial -- not because of the money, but because of the information that would remain hidden if not for the trial: "I want everybody to know what they did," Rowe said.

Much more information will emerge during Rowe's trial, and other information will be released early next year when the US Chemical Safety Board releases its indepth investigation report.

A widow of one of the workers killed at the plant also said that her husband had warned of conditions at the plant.

One of the Baytown-area workers killed in the explosion was Jimmy Hunnings, 58, a quality control specialist for contractor firm Fluor Global Services.

His widow, Linda Hunnings, said Friday her husband told her about the dangers at the plant even before he ever worked there.

“My husband would come home and make the comment, ‘It’s an accident waiting to happen,’" said Hunnings, who received a settlement from the company.

She said her husband, an experienced quality control inspector, had only started working at the BP plant a few months before for a turnaround project. He had resisted working there before because he’d heard about the lack of safety measures, she said.

“To know that they put things on hold, and didn’t really care about people’s safety … it really pisses me off, because it’s an accident that didn’t have to happen and I could still have my husband,” said Hunnings, who has also long worked in the petrochemical industry.

After accidents happen, no matter how many warning signs, no matter how much proof that managers and workers had knowledge that conditions were unsafe, management will always say they had no idea that this would happen, and if they had, they would have done everything in their power to prevent it.

But what they really mean is this: They had no idea that the shortly after 1:00 pm on March 23, 2005, the BP Texas City plant would explode, killing 15 workers in nearby office trailers. This is true, just as no construction manager had any idea that at any specific moment, the trench would cave in on two workers in the 12 foot deep trench without a trench box.

But, of course, this is the wrong answer to the wrong question. The question is, were you aware that there were unsafe conditions? Were you aware that you were cutting corners and violating OSHA standards or industry best practices? Were you aware that there was a possibility that these unsafe conditions could possibly lead to a catastrophic incident? Either the answer is yes, in which case we have a willful violation, or if the answer is no, in which case we have extreme negligence. Either one is unacceptable.

More BP Texas City Explosion Stories here.

BP Texas City Disaster On 60 Minutes Sunday

Tune in to CBS Sunday evening for an 60 Minutes investigation report of the March 23, 2005 BP Texas City explosion that killed 15 workers and injured 170.

Internal BP documents examined by 60 Minutes confirm that top executives of the oil company were aware of safety issues that led to the worst workplace accident in this country in 16 years.

60 Minutes also interviewed a federal official investigating the explosion at BP's Texas City refinery, which killed 15 and injured at least 170, who concludes the blast was "absolutely" preventable.

Correspondent Ed Bradley reports on the investigation this Sunday, Oct. 29, at 7 p.m. ET/PT.

There's apparently some juicy stuff:

Carolyn Merritt, appointed by President Bush to be chairman of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, says management at BP knew enough about Texas City's safety problems to have prevented the disaster.

"Absolutely," says Merritt to Bradley's question on whether the Texas City blast was preventable. "The problems that existed at BP Texas City were neither momentary nor superficial. They ran deep through that operation of a risk denial and a risk blindness that was not being addressed anywhere in the organization."

Merritt adds that she believes budget cuts at the facility were directly related to the accident. "Twenty-five percent of their fixed costs were cut and when you cut that much out of a budget ... Our investigation has shown that this was a drastic mistake," she says.

Merritt spoke to Bradley in the midst of her investigation into the accident. Her report, expected to be released in spring 2007, will outline other failures directly contributing to the deaths and injuries, including old equipment, corroded pipes and non-working alarms.

"There were three pieces of key instrumentation that were actually supposed to be repaired that were not repaired, and the management knew this," reveals Merritt. She says BP management authorized the operation that ultimately resulted in the blast, knowing the three pieces of equipment were not working properly.

BP, Blowjobs and Dead Workers

From the comments, Tasha pointed me to this article about a judge's decision to require BP CEO Lord John Browne to to give a video deposition and be available to testify at trial in a lawsuit brought by victims of the March 23, 2005 Texas City refinery explosion that killed 15 workers and injured 170. Browne had resisted the deposition, claiming that he didn't know anything more than people closer to the process knew.

But plaintiffs' attorney Brent Coon wasn't buying it, arguing that Browne and BP Global Refining Director John Manzoni

have information about "how that plant operated and the problems associated with that plant. It goes back to budget cuts Manzoni and Browne ordered that compromised plant maintenance."

And here's the quote that Tasha liked:

"If President Clinton could be deposed in a harassment case, we think Lord Browne could be deposed in an accident at one of his plants that killed 15 and injured more than 100 others," Coon said.

Indeed.

Workplace Deaths: For The World To See

The billboard pictured below went up at the corner of Texas Ave and 33rd street in Texas City, Texas the other day -- approximately one block from the main entrance of the BP Texas City refinery where 15 workers were killed and 170 injured on March 23, 2005.



But Raymundo C. Gonzalez, Jr. and Leonard Maurice Moore, Jr. didn't die in that explosion. They died from burns from 500 degree water and steam after a pipe broke at the refinery on September 2, 2004, around six months before the larger blast. The billboard was paid for by Gonzalez's daughter Katherine Rodriguez who writes at the USMWF (United Support & Memorial For Workplace Fatalities) website

"I am just now getting to the point where I have the energy to help fight the cause. My Father was hurt along with a fellow co-worker at the BP Texas City plant, just six months before the March 23 explosion that killed 15 contract workers. They were hurt on September 2, 2004. His co-worker passed away September 3, and my Father on November 12. I hold the date of their deaths as family days. Those are the days that we honor them as a family, however the date of the accident is the date that I want everyone in our community to be reminded of for years to come."

Check out the USMWF "Billboard Watch" site for more information.

BP was later cited and fined over $100,000 by OSHA for the deaths, including a willful citation for violating the lockout-tagout standard which requres all hazardous energy sources to be controlled.

BP's Problems: Lemony Snicket tale for the Oil Patch?

My favorite business columnist, Loren Steffy of the Houston Chronicle, is trying to figure out why BP is having so many problems. So he asked Carl Veley at vPSI Group, a management consulting firm that specializes in accident prevention:

Accidents recur, Veley says, because companies tend to focus on what's already happened rather than preventing future problems. If, for example, a factory has a sign that boasts the number of days it's gone without an accident, it's sending the wrong message to workers, Veley argues. It encourages employees to downplay accidents or potential problems. Who wants to be responsible for resetting the number on the sign?

"The more you demand success, the less likely you are to hear about failure," says Veley, whose firm has more than 40 clients in the energy and chemical business, although not BP. "Darkness makes problems grow."

A Series of Unfortunate Incidents?

And then, of course, despite incident after incident, BP continues to claim that it's all a big series of coincidences:

BP argues that problems like the deaths in Texas City and the pipeline corrosion on the North Slope aren't related. It's caught in a series of unfortunate events, a Lemony Snicket tale for the Oil Patch.

Veley is particularly critical of the way companies often respond to accidents. Frequently, they resort to training videos and the like, things that stress worker behavior, but largely ignore management attitude, he says.

"It does nothing to change what people do," he says. "Changing what people do is a management job."

If it's going to effectively address its problems, Veley argues, BP will have to start encouraging workers to report problems, not discourage them.

Veley says companies typically respond to accidents by addressing only the harm that's caused, such as injuries, rather than the source of the accident itself.

If an accident doesn't result in an injury, it often doesn't get reported, he says.

Instead, companies should reward employees for reporting potential problems, he argues. Success, in other words, can be found by embracing shortcomings.

And instead of basking in the Schadenfreude, other companies might want to learn from BP's experience before it's too late.

BP Shuts Down Oil Fields: Problems Continue Since '05 Explosion

Workers are often said to be society's canaries in the coal mine -- the first warnings of chemical health problems for society at large are often first seen when workers start dropping.

The metaphor has been widened today with British Petroleum's announcement that it has shut down for an indefinite period of time its huge Prudhoe Bay oil field in northern Alaska "after finding 'unexpectedly severe corrosion' in a pipeline." The shutdown reduces the American oil supply by 8%.

So how did workers provide a warning to this action that has already raised oil prices by $2 a barrel? In March 2005 a catastrophic explosion ripped through BP's Texas City refinery, killing 15 workers and injuring 170. That incident revealed to the world BP's systemic neglegence of basic precautions needed to protect workers, the community and the environment.

The Texas City incident resulted in a record $21.4 million OSHA fine and possible civil and criminal prosecution. And the Chemical Safety Boards findings that BP's problems go way beyond the screw-ups at the Texas City plant which resulted in an unprecedented "urgent" recommendation that the company establish an independent panel to look into the safety "culture" at all of its North American plants. And let's not forget the $2.4 million OSHA fine against BP's Ohio plant for unsafe conditions. In June, BP announced a little 267,000 gallon oil spill at BP's Prudhoe Bay field, the largest ever on Alaska's North Slope region. That spill may also bring criminal charges against BP.

Financial analyists were alarmed:

“It is difficult to say if this is a BP-wide issue,” said Craig Pennington, the director of the global energy group at Schroders in London. “But they appear to cut corners for the sake of short-term profit maximization. If you are a serial underspender in a refinery, it will come back to haunt you.”

And the short-term profit chickens continue to come home to roost:

BP said that inspections of its facilities at Prudhoe Bay over the weekend had found pipeline walls in more than one location that had been made too thin by corrosion to meet the company’s safety standards. In one area, it said, the equivalent of four to five barrels of oil had already leaked out of the pipeline and spilled on the tundra.

BP said that spill had been contained, and that workers were in the process of cleaning it up.

The company is still inspecting other pipelines and production facilities at the field. So far, BP said this morning, 40 percent of the company’s 22 miles of pipeline in Prudhoe Bay had been completely inspected.

In March, pipeline corrosion caused a leak of more than 200,000 gallons of oil, the worst spill since production began on Alaska’s North Slope. The incident raised questions about whether BP, based in Britain, had been properly maintaining its aging oil production network there, which it acquired when it merged with Amoco in 1998.

***

The latest corrosion problem was detected during an inspection that the government required BP to perform after the March oil spill. A “smart pig” examination, using a machine that travels through the inside of a pipeline to measure wall thickness, revealed that the steel had corroded in 16 places to thicknesses less than BP considers safe.

Daren Beaudo, a BP spokesman, said that for the pipeline in question, safety standards require that at least 70 percent of the steel in a 3/8-inch-thick wall must be intact.

And, as might be imagined, BP's problems are raising further questions about the advisability of drilling in the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge.

BP Kills Refinery Safety?

It's rare these days that you see a headline this honest.

Actually, I can't tell if this was a Freudian slip, a joke that someone didn't catch, or a solemn message from the editors of station KGBT 4 in the Rio Grande Valley. This headline appeared today in a story on the recent death of a contract employee at BP's Texas City refinery:

Given the serious workplace safety, environmental and corruption problems that the giant oil company has experienced over the past couple of years, the headline may be depressingly accurate.

In other BP developments, Chief Executive Lord John Browne announced that

• The company enjoyed a $7.3 billion profit for the second quarter of this year, which comes to about $3.3 million an hour.


• BP will add another $1 billion to the $6 billion already earmarked over the next four years to upgrade all aspects of safety at its U.S. refineries and to repair and replace infield pipelines in Alaska.


• He will retire at the end of 2008. We wish him luck, being assured that he's well equipped to enjoy his retirement.
  

Worker Killed At BP Texas City Plant

A contract worker was killed at BP's Texas City Refinery, the same plant that saw the deaths of 15 workers from an explosion last year.

Based on reports provided to public safety officials in Texas City, the contractor was part of a JV Piping crew that was installing a pipe rack in preparation for connection to a flare. The work was being done in the eastern part of the refinery near the Aromatics Recovery Unit.

BP has been in the process of removing blowdown stack pressure-relief systems and replacing them with flares. That work was prompted by a fatal series of explosions last March at the refinery that was partially blamed on the use of the outdated blowdown system as a way to relieve pressure build up.

The worker who was killed was in a basket of a telescopic lift, which is a work basket attached to the end of a hydraulic arm that can be controlled by the person in the basket or from the ground. The contractor who was killed was believed to be in control of the unit at the time of the accident.

He was killed when he became pinned against the pipe rack as he was attempting to move.

Because the worker was an employee of the contractor (JV Piping) and not BP, the fatality will not go on BP's OSHA log. That's because companies are required by OSHA only to keep logs of the employees on their payroll; employees of contractors working at the site go on logs of the employer of the contractor, which often aren't even in the same industry as the main employer. All 15 of the workers killed in last year's explosion were also contract workers.

The Houston Chronicle discussed this problem in an article last year. The main problem with this kind fo reporting process is that OSHA focuses its inspection targeting on industries with high numbers of injuries, illnesses and fatalities, and the most dangerous companies within those industries. As companies give their most dangerous work to contractors, they increase the chance that their company and their industry can stay off OSHA's targeting list.

But looking at fatalities on the entire site, rather than just on BP's payroll, things don't look so good:

Friday’s fatality marked the 18th person killed at the BP Texas City facility in two years. In September 2004, two men were killed when a pipe burst and struck them with super heated water. In March 2005, a series of explosions ripped through a unit and killed 15 people

BP: Haunted By The Effects Of Short-Term Profit Maximization?

Every time I sit down to write something about the continuing trials and tribulations of poor BP, something else befalls the poor company (That would be "poor" as in "unfortunate," not "poor" as in "lacking money.)

Readers of Confined Space are well aware of the explosion at BP's Texas City plant last year that took the lives of 15 workers and injured 170, resulting in a record $21.4 million OSHA fine and possible civil and criminal prosecution. And the Chemical Safety Boards findings that BP's problems go way beyond the screw-ups at the Texas City plant which resulted in an unprecedented "urgent" recommendation that the company establish an independent panel to look into the safety "culture" at all of its North American plants. And let's not forget the $2.4 million OSHA fine against BP's Ohio plant for unsafe conditions.

And last May it was revealed that

BP's Texas City refinery released three times as much pollution in 2004 as it did in 2003, according to the most recent data from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The increase at BP was so large that it accounted for the bulk of a 15 percent increase in refinery emissions nationwide in 2004, the highest level since 2000.

Last months disaster came in the form of a little 267,000 gallon oil spill at BP's Prudhoe Bay field, the largest ever on Alaska's North Slope region. That spill may also bring criminal charges against BP.

Even Mother Nature seems to be angry at BP as Hurricane Dennis seriously damaged BP's new Thunder Horse offshore oil drilling platform. And after spending $250 million to repair it, there are still problems.

The latest news was that BP traders were accused of manipulating the price of propane two years ago by cornering the market, not good news to Americans who are facing record high energy costs.

Then there was this:

Earlier this month, the company said that its second-quarter production had fallen 2.5 percent from the period last year, to four million barrels a day of oil equivalent, its fourth consecutive quarterly decline. Also, BP said it would take a further $500 million charge for compensation claims for the Texas City blast, in addition to the $700 million it set aside last year.

Oy. While this hasn't quite affected the income of BP's CEO Lord Browne, something needs to be done. But what?

Find someone new to run BP's US operations, in the person of Robert A. Malone, a 32-year company veteran who until recently oversaw BP’s worldwide fleet of tankers. And what a challenge he has:

While he was not responsible for the problems, Mr. Malone will have to answer criticism that BP neglected basic safety rules, fostered a culture of excessive risk-taking and failed to invest enough in critical infrastructure. He also faces the challenge of restoring BP’s credibility not just with the public but also with regulators from the Justice Department and the Labor Department, among others.

The misfortunes already have led to lengthy delays in production, hundreds of millions of dollars in repairs and settlements, and civil and criminal investigations by state and federal agencies. The paradox is that BP — known for navigating successfully in much more challenging places like Siberia, the Caspian and Africa — has faltered in the most open of economic environments.

Mr. Malone is known for his good safety record and we wish him good luck (and well we should considering that BP employees 40,000 American workers and produces 10% of American oil output).

BP's spokesman Ronnie Chappel still insists that “These are unrelated incidents,” but lest anything thing BP is just having a string of bad luck, the financial analysts know better:

“It is difficult to say if this is a BP-wide issue,” said Craig Pennington, the director of the global energy group at Schroders in London. “But they appear to cut corners for the sake of short-term profit maximization. If you are a serial underspender in a refinery, it will come back to haunt you.”

Indeed.