Is it safe?

In the 1976 film Marathon Man, Laurence Olivier plays a former Nazi dentist, Christian Szell. Now living in New York, he has stashed away diamonds stolen during the war in a safe deposit box. He now wishes to withdraw them butfears being robbed should he do so.

Getting entangled in this drama is a student, Babe, played by Dustin Hoffman. Believing that he is involved in a plot to steal the diamonds, Szell proceeds to torture him with his dentist’s drill, while calmly repeating over and over, “Is it safe?” After several minutes of inflicting extreme pain, Szell realizes that Babe knows nothing, and stops drilling.

So is it safe? No, it’s not, according to the January 16 report on the 2005 BP refinery disaster in Texas City, USA. Fifteen people were killed after overfilling of a tank led to released hydrocarbon vapors igniting to cause a huge explosion. The inquiry panel, headed by former Secretary of State James Baker, castigated BP for failing to establish process safety as a core value across all its five US refineries. Among the many criticisms made: interpreting improving personal injury rates as an indication of acceptable process safety performance; not addressing deficiencies found during safety audits; and failing to instill the type of trusting and open environment necessary for a good process safety culture.

To its credit, BP has been quick to admit to its failings and readily agreed to implement all of the report’s 10 recommendations. “This was a preventable incident. It should be seen as a process failure, a cultural failure and a management failure,” said John Mogford, BP Senior Group VP.

The company is committing $1.7 billion annually to improve the integrity of its US refining assets, including installing modern process control systems on major units, and hiring 300 external safety experts to conduct comprehensive audits of its safety systems.

With the panel highlighting that the shortcomings found are unlikely to be unique to BP, and with BP having to pay billions in fines and compensation, this incident is likely to provide a boost for suppliers of safety systems, a key business for all big six process automation players.

Although, it is rather unfortunate, as our writer for the process safety article in this issue (page 24) implies, that it takes a few charred bodies to focus attention on what should really come first – people’s safety.

Please direct your comments to:bob.gill@rbi-asia.com