Explosion In The British Petroleum Texas City Refinery Commerce Essay

Explosion In The British Petroleum Texas urban center Refinery Commerce EssayThe volley and fires incident in the British Petroleum Texas City refinery on 23 March, 2005 has been described and reviewed in this assignment. investigating distinguish revealed that the incident occurred during the startup of an isomerization (ISOM) exploit unit. It was inform that this incident resulted in huge stupor on BP play along and its stake realiseers. The impact of the incident has been critically commended with the support of several data. Fatalities and injuries on nearby trailers, onsite and offsite damage, post-incident collar result, and economic losses were the major consequences of the explosion. Causes of the incident nourish been withal examined in order to modify BP performance. Organizational and process guard inadequate was the major burden for the incident. Recommendations which may improve BP situation and help to avoid idle incident have been provided throughout th e assignment. The improvement on process safety culture, organizational changes such as merger and acquisition, budget cutting and employees training at all levels, as well as the enforcement of more than effective safety management systems have been suggested to improve BP performance. Lastly, a safe trailer attitudement policy has been proposed to avoid the risk of similar incident.British Petroleum Company and Texas City Refinery BackgroundThe British Petroleum (BP) refinery in Texas City, Texas is the third largest oil refinery limit in the U.S. On Wednesday, 23 March 2005 at 120p.m, an explosion and fires happened at the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas, 30 miles southeast of Houston. The BP refinery in Texas City has the great impact on the overall gasoline supply in the U.S. This oil refinery has the capability to produce about 10 million gallons of gasoline per day. This amount of production makes up about 2.5% of the gasoline sold in the U.S. Apart from producing gasol ine, this BP refinery to a fault produces diesel fuels, jet fuels, and chemical ladder stocks. There are 29 oil refinery units and 4 chemical units cover its 1,200 acre plant. In BP refinery in Texas City, BP employs about 1,800 employees. While the explosion and fires occurred, about 800 disregardor workers were onsite carrying throwback activities. The site has had several alters in management at both the corporate and refinery stages from its commissioning to the date of the explosion incident (Kaszniak Holmstrom, 2008 U.S Chemical pencil eraser and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), 2005).Incident DescriptionOn 23 March, 2005, explosion and fires in BP Texas City refinery occurred during the startup of an isomerization (ISOM) process unit (Figure 1). On that morning, the raffinate splitter lift in the refinerys ISOM unit was restarted after it had been shut down for maintenance. During the startup of a section of the ISOM unit, in combustible fluent hydrocarbons were pump ed into a distillation tower for more than 3 hours without any liquid being removed by operations worker. This action was opposing to startup procedure instructions. The false signal provided by pull strings instrumentation and critical alarms failed to alert the promoter workers of the high level in the tower. As a result, unidentified by the operations worker, the distillation tower was overfilled and flammable liquid hydrocarbons overf broken ined into the overhead pipe at the top of the tower (Kaszniak Holmstrom, 2008 U.S CSB, 2005).As the overhead pipe filled with liquid hydrocarbons, the pressure at the bottom come up rapidly and resulted in the three emergency relief valves which used to protect the tower from high pressure opened for six minutes. A large metre of liquid hydrocarbons then flowed from the discharge of safety relief valves to a blowdown drum with a vent stack open to the atmosphere. The blowdown drum and stack speedily overfilled with flammable liquid hydr ocarbons, which resulted in geyser-like release out the 113-foot tall stacks (Figure 2) (Kaszniak Holmstrom, 2008 U.S CSB, 2005). According to CSB final report (2005), this blowdown system was a hazardous and outdated design. As the liquid hydrocarbons fell to the ground, some of the volatile liquid evaporated to form a flammable vapor cloud. The explosion and fires happened when the flammable vapor cloud was ignited most probably by an idling diesel truck positioned approximately 25 feet from the blowdown drum. The vapor cloud arrived at a wide area which is evident by the burn down area as shown in Figure 3 (U.S CSB, 2005).Figure 1. Raffinate section of isomerization ISOM process unit (U.S CSB, 2005)Figure 2. Raffinate splitter tower overfills and blowdown drum releases flammable liquid hydrocarbons to the atmosphere (U.S CSB, 2005)Figure 3. A post-explosion photo shows the burned area in and around the ISOM unit had the most dangerous fire damage spot the red arrow points to the top of the blowdown stack (U.S CSB, 2005).Causes of IncidentThere are several key findings as the causes of this incident occurred in BP Texas City refinery after an probe was conducted by BPs investigation team which coordinated with CSB, the U.S Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), and the Texas Commission of Environmental note (TCEQ). The causes of the incidents are summarized as below,The BP board of Directors did not propose effective safety culture and major accident prevention programs. There were no member in charge of measuring and verifying the performance of BPs major accident hazard preventive programs (U.S CSB, 2005).Risk blindness (The Economists, 2006). For instance, BP did not take effective actions to view as the growing risk of a catastrophic event although several fatalities occurred in BP Texas City refinery prior to this incident (U.S CSB, 2005).BP was too much focused on the low personal injury rat e at Texas City while the process safety management and safety culture had severe insufficiency (U.S CSB, 2005)Inadequate in BPs mechanical integrity program. This led to the failure of the process unit in BP Texas City refinery (U.S CSB, 2005).Overzealous cost-cutting strategies (Economist, 2006 Marketline, 2007a U.S CSB, 2005). According to CSB final report (2005), BP Group executive director managers had expenses cuts in the 6 years resulting in the Texas City disaster without measuring their impact on safety of the site (Economist, 2007 Process engineering, 2007).The blowdown drum and the relief valve garbage disposal piping were undersized and the relief valve system safety study was 13 years overdue (Process Engineering, 2007 US CSB, 2005).ISOM operators had been overstretched (Economist, 2007 US CSB, 2005).Insufficient in BPs operator training program (US. CSB, 2005).Impact of Incident on BP Company and its StakeholdersExplosion and fires in BP Texas City refinery resulted in several negative effects on BP Company and its stakeholders. Those effects include casualties and injuries, preparedness and equipment damage, offsite damage, post-incident emergency response and economic losses (US CSB, 2005). Stakeholders of BP who had been affected by this incident were as below,BP Company and its employeesEmployees of contracting firms which include Jacobs Engineering Group (J.E. Merit), Fluor Corp. and General Electric Co.Families of dead victims and injured workers in this incidentTexas communityTexas CityBP stockholdersThe U.S citizens who use crude oilCasualties and injuriesIn the incident, it was reported that 15 contract employees of J.E. Merit, Fluor Corp. and General Electric Co. were killed and a total of 180 employees in the refinery were injured (U.S CSB, 2005). Investigation report revealed that those 15 casualties were due to the explosions impact on the nearby temporary office trailers where employees were having meetings. Of the 15 casualties, 11 of them were employees of Jacobs, Pasadena, Calif, which was contractor in BPs Texas City refinery. The 11 dead Jacobs workers include several managers, administrators and 4 female craft workers. 3 of the victims were employees of Fluor, Aliso Viejo, Calif, was contractor provided maintenance management services at the plant since 2001. The remaining contractor victim was employee of General Electric Co. whereas no BP employee was killed in the incident. Blunt force trauma, which most likely resulting from being hit by structural components of the trailers was the cause of the all 15 casualties. During the incident, there were approximately 2,200 contract employees and 1,100 BP employees working at the refinery plant. Table 1 shows the details of the 15 dead contractor employees (Powers Rubin, 2005 US CSB, 2005).CompanyNameAgePositionJ.E MeritGlenn V. Bolton50Planner-schedulerJ.E MeritLorena Lori G. Cruz32Instrument fitter-helperJ.E MeritMorris R. King57 make oution managerJ.E MeritArthur G. Ramos59 fiber control technicianJ.E MeritRyan Rodriquez28 imposture superintendentJ.E MeritJames W. Rowe48Civil superintendentJ.E MeritLinda M. Rowe47Tool room assistantJ.E MeritKimberly A. Smith43 national administratorJ.E MeritSusan D. Taylor33Pipe fitter helperJ.E MeritLarry S. Thomas63Project superintendentJ.E MeritEugene White53Safety supervisorFluor Corp.Rafael Herrera27Quality control inspectorFluor Corp.Daniel Hogan58Quality control inspectorFluor Corp.Jimmy Hunnings58Quality control inspectorGeneral Electric Co.Larry Linsenbardt58Title not disclosedTable 1. Contractor employees who died in the incident (Powers Rubin, 2005)Additionally, 180 employees at the plant were injured, 66 of the victims had serious injuries and most of them were suffered multiple injuries. It was reported that lacerations, fractures, sprains, strains, punctures and second-and third degree burns were the typical combination of injuries occurred on victims. Those seriously injured had l eave for works, aesculapian treatment or constrained work activity. Of the 66 workers with serious injuries, 14 were BP employees while the others were contractor workers from 13 different firms. Moreover, report revealed that 114 employees were given first help oneself during the incident. Of those who were given first aid, 35 were BP employees while the rest were contract employees from 14 different contracting firms (U.S. CSB, 2005).Facility and equipment damageAccording to CSB final report (2005), the place within the ISOM unit which caused explosion, nearby trailer area, the adjacent catalyst warehouse as shown in Figure 4 and the adjacent parking areas suffered the most severe din damage. The nearby metal warehouse which used to store catalyst and the satellite control room were heavily damaged (Powers Rubin, 2005 U.S CSB, 2005).Figure 4. Nearby trailers that sited west of the blowdown drum (pointed by red arrow) were destroyed (U.S CSB, 2005).Furthermore, it was found th at about 70 vehicles surrounding the ISOM unit were damaged and numerous vehicles were destroyed (U.S CSB, 2005). Moreover, a total of 44 trailers sustained heavy damaged (Figure 5) and 13 trailers were totally destroyed by the b proceed pressure wave that propagated through the plant when the explosion and fires happened. Report also disclosed that a number of workers were injured in trailers as far as 479-foot away from the explosion (Kaszniak Holmstrom, 2008 U.S CSB, 2005).Additionally, adjacent buildings also were damaged by the blast pressure. The damage level on building was not as severe as those occurred on trailers. The damage on surrounding buildings included damaged doors, loony walls, and broken windows, scattering of interior contents, damaged roofs and bent metal panels. Also, the explosion also damaged a total of 50 storage tank cars although most tank farm was located more than 250-foot away from the ISOM unit. The damage on tanks included distorted tank shells, b oth the shell sides and the roofs. A number of tanks utilized to hold hazardous substances like benzene were found being damaged as well and this resulted in the hazardous substances vapors escaped to atmosphere (U.S. CSB, 2005).Offsite DamageCSB report disclosed that not only the buildings in the refinery were damaged barely windows of some houses and business buildings which situated north of the refinery were broken as well. These damaged offsite buildings were located up to 3 quarters of mile away from the explosion (U.S CSB, 2005).Figure 5. Trailers in the vicinity of the ISOM unit were heavily damaged (Occupational Hazards, 2005).Post-Incident Emergency ResponseThe emergency response teams in Texas City were one of the BP stakeholders affected by this BP refinery explosion. These emergency teams provided effective and rapid assistance for the injured people and recovered the fatalities. Texas City Industrial reciprocal Aid System (IMAS) member companies helped with search an d rescue and fire hose lines (U.S CSB, 2005)Economic LossesBP has set aside approximately $2 jillion in compensation repairs, payouts and lost reach for settlement of the incident (Marketline, 2007a). According to The Justice Department and US Environment Protection Agency (EPA), in order to settle down Clean Air Act violations in Texas City refinery, BP Products North America has spent over $161 million after the explosion to control pollution in Texas City, improved monitoring and maintenance and enhanced its internal management practices in Texas City refinery. EPA also reported that $12 million was paid by BP on civil penalty and $6 million was spent on a supplemental project to decrease air pollution in Texas. For settlement issues, BP also converted 100 diesel public vehicles to vehicles that operate using liquefied or compressed natural gas in order to reduce the hazardous emissions like hydrocarbons, nitrogen oxides and particulate matter. Besides that, BP agreed to build 4 refueling stations for those converted public vehicles (Marketline, 2009). It was also reported that BP faced penalties with $92,000 from The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) for violations in the Texas City refinery (Marketline, 2007b). Moreover, to compensate the victims in the explosion, BP has incurred $1.6 billion (Economist, 2007). Likewise, BP faced reduction in its fourth quarter profit in 2006 due to the huge expenses on safety and integrity investments after the incident. It was reported that BPs fourth quarter profit fell 12% when compared to the last 3 quarters of 2005. Although BP achieved record profit for 2006 BP lagged behind that of its UK competitor Shell (Marketline, 2007c). BPs share price also trailed its rivals like Americans Exxon Mobil in 2006 (Economist, 2007).RecommendationsSome recommendations to improve BP situation have been proposed after accessing the causes of the incident. Safety culture recommendation and trailer siting rec ommendation have been suggested to BP Company as follow,Safety culture recommendation remedy and emphasis more on process safety culture and performance throughIncrease spending on safety assessment and maintenance list an expert on safety management systems for at least 5 years to examine the safety progress in BP refineries.Incorporate process safety into management decision making at all levelsPromote improved process safety through education and training employees at all levelsConstruct organizational changes that may improve process safety which includeMain organizational changes in refinery, for instance through mergers and acquisitionsPolicies changes like cost cutting and regard consistency of policiesEmployees changes such as changes in staff experience and hire more workers to avoid work overloads.Reinforce safety management systems through enforcement of more valuable and effective programs, for instanceMechanical integrity programsRisk management and analysis programs a ndErrors reporting and investigation programsTrailers siting recommendationDevelop a novel trailers localisation policy which contains practices to ensure the safe siting of trailers as below,Protect occupied trailers from accident exposure, for example, explosion pressure and heatSet up minimum safe place requirements for trailer siting where is away from dangerous zones of process plantsAssess the relocated trailers placement via novel risk analysis methodologyConclusionThe explosion and fires occurred in BP Texas City refinery in 2005 resulted in huge impact on BP Company and its stakeholders. The effects of the incident included casualties and injuries which 15 contract employees were killed and 180 employees in the plant were injured, facility and equipment in the plant were damaged or destroyed, offsite houses and business buildings were damaged, assistance from emergency response teams in Texas City and economic losses. BP had has paid about $2 billion to compensate the rep airs, payouts and lost profits and about $1.6 billion to compensate the victims. Moreover, BP was fined by EPA and OSHA for violations in Texas City refinery. BPs Q4 profit in 2006 also faced fall due to the explosion in Texas City refinery. The profit reduction not only affected BP Company but also BP stockholders. The incident also resulted in the financial performance of BP lagged behind its competitors. As part of settlement, BP also agreed to convert 100 diesel public vehicles to vehicles that operate using liquefied or compressed natural gas. Furthermore, the incident has vast impact on the overall gasoline supply in the U.S as the gasoline production of this oil refinery makes up about 2.5% of the gasoline sold in the U.S. Safety culture recommendation and trailer siting recommendation have been given to improve BP situation. Even though accordance with practices in policies does not guarantee on avoidance of hazardous incident, non-compliance undoubtedly increases the risk s. Also, enforcement of effective safety management systems is essential in all companies. Last but not least, employees safety training at all levels are very important to prevent the major incidents.