Buncefield board demands major safety changes

London – UK sites that store and transfer petroleum products must operate to much higher industry-wide safety standards, the Buncefield Major Incident Investigation Board (MIIB) said in its recommendations for improvements to the design and operation of these sites.

Calling for revisions to guidance and standards for process safety, environmental protection and operational performance, MIIB chairman Lord Newton highlighted a need for “a more consistent response to broadly similar major hazard risks.” The report, he said, “challenges the industry to substantially strengthen safety standards at sites handling large quantities of fuel.”

The MIIB report incorporated some of the findings of the recent Baker Report on the fatal explosion at BP’s Texas City refinery in 2005. These, said the Board, relate particularly to process safety leadership, safety culture, performance indicators, independent monitoring, industry leadership, engineering practices, safety knowledge and industry competence.

The MIIB recommendations are mainly for operators of sites with large-scale fuel storage facilities, but also cover designers, suppliers and contractors, as well as professional institutions or trade associations. Some of the recommendations could also apply to the wider chemical industry, the Board added.

Among the MIIB’s key recommendations are that the integrity levels that protective safety systems are expected to achieve be determined before they are installed. The sector, it said, curently lacks a common systematic approach to support this process.

“The Competent Authority and operators of Buncefield-type sites should develop and agree a common methodology to determine safety integrity level (SIL) requirements for overfill prevention systems,” said the MIIB. This should take account of nearby populations, the nature of depot operations; reliability expectations for tank gauging systems; and the degree of operator monitoring.

Operators should review and amend their management systems for maintenance of equipment and systems including procedures for proof testing of storage tank overfill prevention systems, the MIIB continued. They should also fit high integrity, automatic overfill prevention systems that are separate and independent from the tank gauging system.

“All systems must automatically stop the supply to the dangerously full tank by means that are fully independent of the tank gauging system,” said the report. The overfill prevention system -- comprising means of level detection, logic/control equipment and independent means of flow control -- should be engineered, operated, maintained and proof tested to BS EN 61511, Part 1, it added.

Another MIIB recommendation is that receiving sites have ultimate control of tank filling and be able to safely terminate or divert a transfer without relying on a remote third party or communications to a remote location.

The Board, meanwhile, wants the entire sector, including equipment manufacturers and suppliers, to report without delay on the scope to develop alternative means of ultimate high level detection for overfill prevention that do not rely on components internal to the storage tank. Moreover, companies must also introduce further measures to prevent the formation of flammable vapour in the event of tank overflow, such as by modifying tank top design and ensuring safe re-routing of overflowing liquids, said the MIIB.

MIIB’s recommendations also encompass human and organisational factors, including defining the role and responsibilities of control room operators and their interfaces with various process systems. They also cover ensuring robust communications management within and between sites and contractors and with operators of distribution systems and transmitting sites such as refineries.

The Board also wants arrangements in place to collate incident data on high potential incidents. These, it said, should cover overfilling, equipment failure, spills and alarm system defects, and involve communicating information on risks, solutions and control measures to the industry.

Design and operation of sites was one of its four main areas of concern in this investigation. The other areas of continuing work are emergency preparedness and response to incidents, advice to planning authorities and an examination of the HSE’s and the Environment Agency’s roles in regulating the activities on the Buncefield site. Investigations into whether any criminal offences have been committed are continuing.