No proof BP sacrificed safety to cut costs - panel

16 January 2007 21:31  [Source: ICIS news]

HOUSTON (ICIS news)--The panel investigating BP’s safety culture said on Tuesday the company did not allocate adequate resources to process security but also found no evidence that cost-cutting measures had affected safety at its US refineries.

“We did not find definitive evidence that BP ever purposefully withheld resources with respect to safety,” said James Baker, the former US secretary of state who chaired the panel.

The company’s chief executive echoed those remarks during a video conference call with journalists in Houston.

“No one … has ever turned down a requested expenditure identified as being critical for safety,” BP chief executive John Browne told reporters.

However, the US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) had cited budget reductions as a cause of progressive deterioration of safety at the Texas City, Texas refinery, where a March 2005 explosion killed 15 and injured 170.

After the panel’s presentation, Sandy Gilmour, a spokesman for the CSB said the panel’s report did not contradict the board’s findings.

“We see no daylight between the panel’s report and our earlier findings about cost-cutting having an effect,” he said.

In the report, the panel said it did not have access to specific refinery budget requests and allocations. It did say that “the company did not always ensure that adequate resources were effectively allocated to support or sustain a high level of process safety performance.”

The panel was charged with reviewing the safety controls and culture of the company’s North American refineries.

BP commissioned the independent panel at the behest of the CSB, which will release its final report investigating the causes of the Texas City blast in March.

By: Joseph Lohan
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