BP Sets Up New Safety and Risk Unit

photo : Wikipedia

The incoming BP Chief Executive Bob Dudley has announced that the company will set up a new Safety and Operational Risk function.

This change, implemented as a result of the Deepwater Horizon incident, creates a division reporting directly to Dudley and with responsibility "for ensuring that all operations are carried out to common standards, and for auditing compliance with those standards".

Dudley has also announced that BP will also review how it rewards its managers, with the stated aim of encoraging excellence in safety and risk management.

The blog applauds these actions, this is an appropriate response to such a catastrophic incident, putting process safety and risk management to the top of the corporate agenda. The only question is, why was this action not taken after Texas City?

Iran Petrochemical Plant Explosion Kills Four

photo : http://www.tradearabia.com/

According to reports, 4 workers were killed as a result of an explosion at the NPC plant in the Gulf island of Kharg. The explosion occuured on Saturday evening.

According to the provincial governor 'An explosion from a gas leak occurred on Saturday evening around 7pm, but it was extinguished at 12am by firefighters'.

Despite the impact of sanctions, Iran has a good record on safety. A quick look at the programme for the 2011 International Conference on HSE, shows the high level of focus on safety issues, including a number of process safety topics. As a state-run organisation, NPC has invested heavily in new plants but has maintained a good safety record. It is hoped that the investigation rapidly identifies and addresses the root cause of this particular incident.

UK Health and Safety Executive Publishes Buncefield Evidence

photo : Hertfordshire Constabulary

The UK Health and Safety Executive (HSE) has published some of the evidence being presented in the current trial of three companies over the explosion at the Buncefield depot in 2005.

As a reminder, several explosions occurred at the Buncefield Depot in the early hours of Sunday 11th December 2005. At least one of the initial explosions was of massive proportions and there was a large fire, which engulfed a high proportion of the site. Over 40 people were injured but thankfully there were no fatalities.

There was, however, substantial damage to  properties in the area and the fire burned for several days, destroying most of the site and emitting large clouds of black smoke into the atmosphere.

A number of videos and photos have been published. The videos are stunning, showing the speed at which the vapour cloud advanced. The photos show the damage to the control room and the spread of debris following the explosions.

I'd recommend all those with an involvement in chemical manufacturing to take a look and challenge your own operations.This type of incident is totally preventable if we take the time and effort to assess the risks and then take the right actions to systematically eliminate them.

Deepwater Horizon - Update

According to latest reports, concerns are growing for the 11 workers still missing following the explosion on the rig on Tuesday evening, which caused the rig to collapse and sink yesterday.

A team of engineers is also working to control a major oil spill, caused by very subtantial amounts of oil and gas pumping out from the oil reservoir

According to Transocean, the Swiss company that owned the rig, engineers are trying to cut off the uncontrolled flow of oil using a subsea robot. Apparently the the robot, equipped with cameras and remote-controlled arms, is being used to try to activate an automatic shut off device on the seafloor, designed automatically to clamp shut over the base of a pipe that connects the rig with the seabed.

First priority is to locate the missing persons and deal with the spillage. The investigation, when it takes place, will certainly have to look at the design of similar shut-off devices to ensure that in future, activation occurs even in extreme circumstances such as this.

Transocean Oil Rig Explosion - Echoes of Piper Alpha?

photo : Upstream Today

An explosion on Transocean's 'Deepwater Horizon' oil rig at approximately 10 pm on Tuesday has left 11 people  missing and 17 in hospital, of which 4 are critically ill.

Ther rig is owned and operated by the Swiss company Transocean and was carrying out exploratory drilling on behalf of BP.

At presnet, authorities are unable to say when the flames might die out on the rig. A large column of black smoke was seen over the Gulf of Mexico as firefighters tackled the blaze.


Adrian Rose, vice president of Transocean, said the explosion appeared to be a blowout, in which natural gas or oil forces its way up a well pipe and smashes the equipment. But precisely what went wrong is still under investigation.

According to reports, a total of 126 workers were aboard. 79 were Transocean workers, 6 were BP employees and 41 were contractors.

Still far too early to draw any conclusions but the fact that so many are missing and that many more are injured means that a full and thorough investigation must be carried out as quickly as is possible.

Chemical Release at UK Plant Injures Four

photo : http://www.hull.ac.uk/

FOUR workers were hurt last week, one very seriously, following a serious leak of titanium tetrachloride (TiCl4) from the Cristal Global titanium dioxide plant near Grimsby, UK.

The workers suffered burns and toxic inhalation injuries when up to two tonnes of titanium tetrachloride were released at the site, following the rupture of a pressurised container. The company has indicated that the site will remain closed until it was satisfied it was safe to restart operations.
 
The causes of the incident are not yet known and the investigation is on-going. Staff from the UK Health and Safety Executive have been present at the site over the weekend.
According to reports, the company has previously been prosecuted for releasing titanium tetrachloride to the atmosphere in 2006.
 
The site was severely impacted by the recession during 2009, with a number of production slowdowns and a extended shutdown due to the drop in demand for construction related products.
 
This incident was very serious and could have resulted in multiple fatalities. Thankfully this wasn't the case but is still vital that all of the root causes are fully understood and issues rectified before the facility restarts.

Explosion at PetroChina Kills Five

photo : ibtimes.com

An explosion at CNPC's Lanzhou Petrochemical Company in Gansu Province, China has killed 5 people and injured 6 others.

According to reports, the blast, on 7th January, occurred at a naphtha tank farm at the site. The ignition source was believed to be static electricity, which ignited flammable vapours which had leaked from a nearby pygas tank

According to CNPC, there was no damage to nearby residential buildings and there was no escape of toxic gas from the site.Firewater has been collected at the site for treatment.

The CNPC Vice President Liao Yongyuan and a team of experts has visited the site to deal with the aftermath. CNPC has also sent an urgent message throughout the group, advising employees of the accident and stressing the need for improve HSE performance.

Buncefield - Process Safety Leadership Group Publishes Final Report

photo : metro.co.uk

The UK Process Safety Leadership Group (PSLG) has published a report that specifies minimum standards of safety and environmental protection for all UK sites storing large volumes of gasoline.

The PSLG was set up following the explosions at fire the Buncefield fuel depot in December 2005.

The PSLG consists of expert representatives from the industry and regulatory bodies. In the course of its work, the group has established a set of 'Principles of Process Safety Leadership' as follows:

• Clear and positive process safety leadership is at the core of managing a major hazard business and is vital to ensure that risks are effectively managed
• Process safety leadership requires board level involvement and competence. For companies with boards located outside the UK then the responsibility to show this leadership rests with the most senior UK managers.
• Good process safety management does not happen by chance and requires constant active engagement
• Board level visibility and promotion of process safety leadership is essential to set a positive safety culture throughout the organisation
• Engagement of the workforce is needed in the promotion and achievement of good process safety management
• Monitoring process safety performance based on both leading and lagging indicators is central to ensuring business risks are being effectively managed
• Publication of process safety performance information provides important public assurance about the management of risks by an organisation
• Sharing best practice across industry sectors, and learning and implementing lessons from relevant incidents in other organisations, are important to maintain the currency of corporate knowledge and competence.

The principles are backed up by recommendations on organisation and resources. This blog's view is that this document is a 'must see' for all managers in the chemical industry, irrespective of location, as it provides an excellent checklist for measuring your organisation's current performance against best practice in process safety management.

CSB Requests Closure of US Refinery

photo : http://www.ksl.com/

The US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has requested the closure of the Silver Eagle Refinery located in Utah, USA. According to CSB President, John Bresland, the CSB team found widespread safety problems at the refinery during the investigation into the November 4th explosion at the plant.

According to Mr Bresland, the CSB team had developed a number of serious concerns about the integrity of the piping and equipment at the refinery. The team found a  lack of required documentation to demonstrate fitness for service of various pieces of equipment.

The explosion on 4th November was caused by a release of hydrogen due to a burst in a 10-inch pipe. CSB investigators found that the pipe "showed evidence of significant thinning which had not been detected by the refinery's mechanical integrity program". The explosion, in the diesel hydrotreater unit, caused damage to homes in the surrounding area and was felt several miles away from the facility

The refinery will restart after repairs and safety inspections are completed.

This is yet more evidence that regulators are becoming tougher in dealing with process safety issues. This blog fully supports this tougher stance. Incidents such as this are fully preventable if organisations are proactive in process safety management (PSM) and have a strong PSM strategy and culture throughout the organisation.

BP Texas City - Strongly Worded Statement From CSB

photo : CSB

Following the recent OSHA announcement alleging 'extensive and serious violations by BP at Texas City, John Bresland, Chairman of US Chemical Safety Board (CSB) has issued a strongly worded statement in which he expresses concerns about BP's safety culture.

In the statement Bresland states "Whilst these OSHA citations are not yet final, they are of great concern to me because they strongly suggest that BP has yet to achieve an effective safety culture with regard to process safety management.

Bresland also expresses concern about on-going problems across the U.S. Refinery Industry "Whilst OSHA reported that a potential for another catastrophic accident remains at B.P. Texas City, the CSB has found that safety problems continue across the U.S. Refinery Industry".

Whilst the CSB is focused on the industry in the U.S. it is fair to say that process safety management concerns exist across the industry and across the globe. Some organisations are doing excellent work in this area, whilst others still need to improve.

Most importantly, organisations need to have clearly defined accountabilities for process safety at board level. This means having someone with real professional expertise in operations and process safety, with the authority and capability to drive an effective PSM programme. Accidents such as Texas City must not be allowed to happen again but as things stand, the risk remains very real.

OSHA Rejects BP's Request For More Time In Texas City Follow-Up

photo : ABC

In a letter seen by Reuters, OSHA has rejected BP's request for more time to fix safety problems at its Texas City Refinery.

OSHA has forwarded the dispute to a review commission and objected to BP's appeal, arguing that BP had failed to show how it would fix safety problems found after the deadly 2005 explosion at the refinery. OSHA has also said that BP could not ask for more time whilst simultaneously claiming that the refinery had met the terms of a four-year agreement to fix the safety issues which led to the explosion in March 2005 which killed 15 people and injured 180 other workers.

BP has said the commission would find the company has lived up to its agreement to comply with federal safety regulations at Texas City.

Without the detail, it is impossible comment on specifics. In broad terms however, it is fair to say that questions of interpretation can be argued and debated but questions of fundamental process safety must be fully addressed.

Process Safety - You Don't Improve What You Don't Measure

I've been in Kuala Lumpur delivering training to industry professionals this week. Due to the nature of the course, we discussed Texas City, Bhopal and Piper Alpha as relevant case studies highlighting just what can go wrong. It is now almost 25 years since the Bhopal catastrophe and thankfully the industry has made significant steps forward in reducing the likelihood of such incidents happening in future. However, I'm sure that we all can agree that we need to keep on pushing for improvement in this respect and that complacency in PSM is absolutely not an option.

We all know what can happen when process safety is not managed adequately; Texas City, Flixborough, Seveso, Bhopal, Piper Alpha amongst many, many others. These incidents have enormous impacts; for the people killed, hurt or otherwise affected by the incidents and for the organisations involved - in terms of cost, reputation and business continuity.

Yet many organisations that want to improve process safety still struggle with defining the right metrics, particularly in the case of leading indicators.

From a number of discussions with experts in this field, it is clear that there are sometimes differing views on exactly what should be measured and there is acceptance that, in some cases, the measures need to be site and process specific. One thing which is universally agreed, however, is that leading indicators are highly valuable to give an early warning that things could go wrong.

For those new to this subject, the guide from Center for Chemical Process Safety, 'Process Safety - You Don't Improve What You Don't Measure' , is an excellent starting point. Click here for link