Independent Report Criticizes BP's Safety

(CBS/AP)  An independent panel led by former U.S. Secretary of State James A. Baker III said Tuesday that British oil giant BP PLC failed to emphasize operational safety at its U.S. refineries before the 2005 Texas City explosion that killed 15.

The panel, in a statement summarizing its 370-plus page report on BP's operations, said the company had made strides in personal accident prevention but came up short on the bigger picture.

"The panel maintains a central theme that prior to the Texas City tragedy BP emphasized personal safety and had achieved significant improvements in personal injury rates, but the company did not emphasize process safety," the statement said. "BP mistakenly interpreted improving personal injury rates as an indication of acceptable process safety performance at its U.S. refineries."

The 11-member panel made 10 recommendations, including that an independent monitor report to the company's board of directors for a period of five years. The full report was to be released later Tuesday.

Baker has led the panel investigating corporate management at Houston-based BP Products North America following the March 2005 blast that killed 15 people and injured more than 170 others.

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Read the Baker panel's report (374 pages)

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The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, known as the CSB, urged BP in August 2005 to hire outside experts to look at the company's oversight of safety management systems and make its findings public — similar to an investigation at NASA following the space shuttle Columbia tragedy.

The panel, announced in October 2005, has traveled to BP's five U.S. refineries and interviewed hundreds of employees.

"BP tended to have a short-term focus in its U.S. refining operations, and its decentralized management system and entrepreneurial culture delegated substantial discretion to U.S. refinery plant managers without clearly defining process safety expectations, responsibilities or accountabilities," the panel said in the report.

The report explains that the panel focused on "process" safety rather than personal safety.

"Process safety in a refinery involves the prevention of leaks, spills, equipment malfunctions, over-pressures, excessive temperatures, corrosion, metal fatigue, and other similar conditions," the report says.

"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."

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[alphaa10-2009]

Lest we forget, BP also confessed to negligence in the recent spill of oil from its portion of the Alaska pipeline. BP admitted it had not observed proper maintenance of the pipeline, as required, by routinely running automated devices known as "pigs" through the pipes to check for deterioration.

BP, caught red-faced, could not claim oversight-- the company was intensely focused on working the pipeline to the limits of its ability to provide oil profits for the company. BP knew the risk to the pipeline, and took that risk, anyway.