INSIGHT: Baker panel highlights safety culture

17 January 2007 17:05  [Source: ICIS news]

By Nigel Davis

LONDON (ICIS news)--Analysts have suggested that the impact on BP of the extensive Baker report into the Texas City refinery explosion may not be as great as first expected.

But a harder hitting US Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) study waits in the wings and is due to be published later this year.

Both reviews focus attention on the oil giant’s safety practices and management. The message loud and clear is that the twin approaches to safety have continually to be appraised. A shift in either can seriously compromise operational safety.

From as far back as the Piper Alpha oil rig disaster in the North Sea it has been crystal clear that safety management is as important as safety practices.

A company may have elaborate procedures and devices in place to guard against accidents and to prevent major disasters but it has long been known in safety circles that these have their limits.

Regulations, rules and equipment are all fallible. Process safety is best assured if a strong safety culture exists throughout an organisation and is expected of its contractors.

It is management’s responsibility to ensure that such a culture is allowed to flourish.

The Baker panel report suggests that while BP focused on personal safety and injury rates it did not emphasise process safety. BP’s decentralised management style in North America and the short term focus in refinery operations meant that plant manager responsibilities may not have been clearly defined.

BP was pushing safety in one direction but in North America losing sight of the bigger picture. The message is that all employees have to be drawn in to the safety net and understand why thinking about safety first is a priority.

“It is imperative that BP’s leadership set the process safety ‘tone at the top’,” the panel’s report says. The panel says BP has not provided effective process safety leadership and not adequately established process safety as a core value across its five US refineries.

There is no suggestion that cost controls were a contributory factor but a belief that adequate resources were not allocated to support a high level of process safety performance. The panels’ report comes around time and again to the ways in which safe working practices were promoted within the organisation and implemented in the five North American refineries.

BP has taken steps on some of the recommendations highlighted in the panel report and pinpointed in an earlier internal review. The company admits, however, that there is more to do.

“We asked for a candid assessment from this diverse group of experts and they delivered one,” BP chief executive John Browne says. “We will use this report to enhance and continue the substantial effort already underway to improve safety culture and process safety management at our facilities."

Improving a safety culture, however, takes time and involves change. It is unlikely that the report will prompt any management departures but it will prompt a change in approach. BP will spend more on its North American refineries and on changes in safety working practices.

The new systems are targeted to be installed and working by the end of 2007 which, BP says, is a year ahead of the original schedule.

Tragedy has forced BP to re-appraise its safety systems, culture and working practices. It should also have prompted other firms to look again at what they do.

The Baker panel says it is under no illusions that the deficiencies it has observed are limited to BP. Serious consideration should be given to its recommendations industry-wide.

By: Nigel Davis
+44 20 8652 3214

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