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Houston Chronicle: THE BP EXPLOSION (*Shell not the only oil giant with flawed Health & Safety culture)

EXTRACT: The Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined BP a record $21.4 million in September for more than 300 alleged violations of federal regulations in connection with the blast.  BP agreed to pay the fine as part of a settlement, but OSHA levied a second, $2.4 million fine against the company in April for alleged safety violations at its Ohio refinery. BP “failed to learn from the lessons of Texas City to assure their workers’ safety and health,” Edwin Foulke Jr., OSHA assistant secretary, said at the time.

THE ARTICLE

Panel presses ahead on report
Experts expect to recommend industrywide improvements
Aug. 4, 2006, 11:14PM

By ANNE BELLI
Copyright 2006 Houston Chronicle

An independent panel of experts reviewing BP management’s safety culture is entering its final phase of work and plans to issue what many expect to be a highly detailed — some say critical — report in the next few months.

“I think you’ll see a great deal of depth and some high-level, broad areas addressed,” said panel member Paul Tebo, a former vice president and general manager of DuPont’s global petrochemicals business unit.

Kim Nibarger, a top safety official with the United Steelworkers union who has both participated in and monitored the review, said he expected the report to be “fairly strongly worded.”

“I am more optimistic today that they will have uncovered some of the failings that we have been trying to tell them about,” he said.

Tebo and panel member Isadore “Irv” Rosenthal declined to talk about their findings so far. But they said their final report will contain frank conclusions and recommendations for improvement not only for BP, which has been dogged by safety problems in the last year, but also the entire petrochemical industry.

“I think the panel’s report is going to be straightforward and will report things as they are,” said Rosenthal, senior research fellow at the Wharton Risk Management and Decision Processes Center. “I think it will make a contribution to any firm’s process-safety program.”

History of problems

The panel, chaired by former U.S. Secretary of State James Baker III, was appointed by BP at the urging of federal investigators looking into the fatal March 2005 blast at its Texas City refinery.

Fifteen people were killed and scores were injured when workers accidentally overflowed a vent stack with hydrocarbons during the startup of a process unit.

The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board has not yet issued its final report on the root causes of the blast, but preliminarily it said that in addition to worker error playing a role, the process unit had a long history of problems and that key equipment was not working properly on the day of the startup.

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined BP a record $21.4 million in September for more than 300 alleged violations of federal regulations in connection with the blast.

BP agreed to pay the fine as part of a settlement, but OSHA levied a second, $2.4 million fine against the company in April for alleged safety violations at its Ohio refinery. BP “failed to learn from the lessons of Texas City to assure their workers’ safety and health,” Edwin Foulke Jr., OSHA assistant secretary, said at the time.

BP has appealed that action, but the federal agency has kept the company on its “Enhanced Enforcement Program” for repeat violators of safety regulations.

Meanwhile, the 11-member safety review panel is nearly done with its fact-finding phase and is beginning analysis of more than eight months of research, said Joe Cialone, lead staff attorney for the panel.

In addition to Baker, Tebo and Rosenthal, it includes national experts in refinery operations, process safety, management, human behavior, nuclear energy and public policy.

Investigation at all levels

The panel and a battery of lawyers from Houston-based Baker Botts — although they have had no subpoena power — have conducted hundreds of interviews with workers and contractors at all levels, and reviewed thousands of pages of documents and conducted site reviews and community meetings at the company’s five U.S. refineries in Texas City; Toledo, Ohio; Cherry Point, Wash.; Carson, Calif.; and Whiting, Ind.

It also sent a survey to every BP employee and contractor at each of the refineries, requesting their comments, Cialone said.

Outside help

And, perhaps most significantly, it hired an outside process safety management consultant — which Cialone declined to name — to conduct reviews at each of the refineries except the one in Texas City. That plant is already under a review by another consultant as part of the OSHA settlement, and the panel has access to that information, he said.

“This is not a staff-driven exercise,” Cialone said. “This panel has been extremely hardworking, dedicated and involved in the process.”

For its part, BP is “fully cooperating with the independent panel” and has worked “to ensure they have the resources required to do a thorough job,” company spokesman Ronnie Chappell said.

Cialone said that the company has been forthcoming with both information and financial backing and that it has not put any limits on the scope of the panel’s work.

Leader questioned

From the start, however, some have doubted that the panel’s final report would be critical of BP because of Baker’s involvement.

Baker’s firm has done legal work for BP, and Baker himself has close ties to the petrochemical industry.

Baker has repeatedly denied any conflict of interest, but that hasn’t quieted some critics.

“I don’t think this is a serious investigation,” said Beaumont plaintiffs lawyer Brent Coon, who is representing hundreds of injured workers and is preparing to go to trial on some of the cases in September.

“BP hand-picked the leader of this committee and BP is not going to pick a person that is going to turn the company inside and out,” Coon said.

He acknowledged that the panel is made up of professionals with “impeccable credentials” and whose reputations are also on the line.

Implementation up to BP

Nibarger, whose is leading the union’s own investigation into the March blast, said his skepticism about the panel has given way to some optimism in recent months.

“But I actually have to see what comes out,” he said. “We’re not going to know until we see the report.”

Panel members vowed an honest report, but agreed that they can’t control what BP will do with their recommendations.

“There is no regulatory kick to this,” Tebo said. “But it would be a mistake if they don’t implement this.”

Rosenthal, a former member of the chemical safety board, said he doubted BP will embrace all of the final report.

“But if they generally take into account the findings and recommendations, I think it will make a difference,” he said.

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(*Shell not the only oil major with flawed Health & Safety culture: added by ShellNews.net)

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