BP fined record $87 million in Texas City blast aftermath

BP fined record $87 million in Texas City blast aftermath

US Occupational Safety and Health Administration has proposed $87 million in fines against BP for failing to make safety upgrades required under a settlement agreement with the agency following the deadly 2005 blast at the company’s Texas City refinery, as well as for new safety violations.
The penalty, the largest ever proposed by OSHA, is for 270 alleged failures to comply with the settlement and for 439 new “willful” violations, chiefly related to pressure release devices at the plant, U.S. Secretary of Labor Hilda Solis said today in a press conference.

“Unfortunately, we have found that the company still has not addressed many critical safety issues it had agreed to correct under the 2005 settlement,” she said, noting the issues were discovered during 17 additional OSHA inspections of the plant since 2005. “We don’t need to see the loss of another life there. Our motto is we would like to see people go into work and be able to come home to their families,” she said.

BP Products North America, the division of the British oil giant named in action, said it was formally contesting all of the citations, many of which it said were disclosed to the company late Thursday.
“We continue to believe we are in full compliance with the settlement agreement, and we look forward to demonstrating that before the review commission,” BP Texas City refinery manager Keith Casey in a statement.

The March 23, 2005, explosion that killed 15 occurred after a piece of equipment called a blowdown drum overfilled with highly flammable liquid hydrocarbons. The excess liquid and vapors were vented from the drum and ignited. Alarms and gauges that were supposed to warn of the overfilled equipment did not work properly.