Beyond the safety zone

Tenure of the BP Texas City refinery could be likened to a company running a fleet of cars and deciding for cost and competitiveness reasons not to maintain and replace worn parts on the older models or check up on the skill of the employees driving and running these ageing vehicles.

A crude analogy perhaps, but one that highlights a central issue for all involved in ensuring plant safety — competitiveness.

If reducing basic standards of employee safety serves to improve a company's ability to compete within any industry, then something's fundamentally wrong in that industry.

BP has been strongly criticised for its role in the Texas City disaster. However, all individuals, agencies, companies and organisations involved in industry could examine if they contribute, however inadvertently, to the kind of environment that leads to industrial hazards and incidents.

This is a common message in the recommendations from the official reports into the accidents at the Texas City refinery and Buncefield oil depot in the UK. It is also a point that officials in the UK and the US are determined to address.

As expected, the Chemical Safety Board and the Buncefield Major Incident Investigation Board place new requirements on process operators to ensure the safety of their facilities, particularly in terms of hazardous substance containment and automatic safety systems.

The regulators have also gone beyond this to challenge all parties, including trade associations, unions and other bodies to develop and contribute to a culture of continuous safety improvement in their own industry sectors.