Texas City Refinery Explosion - Aftermath

Aftermath

The CSB report found that BP had failed to heed or implement safety recommendations made before the blast. Among them were:

• In 1991, the Amoco refining planning department proposed eliminating blowdown systems that vented to the atmosphere, but funding for this plan was not included in the budget.
• In 1992, OSHA issued a citation to Amoco for unsafe design of similar pressure-relief systems at the plant. However, Amoco successfully persuaded OSHA to drop this citation by relying on the less-stringent requirements in API Recommended Practice 521.
• In 1993, the Amoco Regulatory Cluster project proposed eliminating atmospheric blowdown systems, but again, funding was not approved.
• In 1995, a refinery belonging to Pennzoil suffered a disaster when two storage tanks exploded, engulfing a trailer and killing five workers. The conclusion was that trailers should not be located near hazardous materials. However, BP ignored the warnings, and they believed that because the trailer where most of the deaths happened was empty most of the year, the risk was low.
• Despite Amoco’s process safety standard No. 6, which prohibited new atmospheric blowdown systems and called for the phasing out of existing ones, in 1997, Amoco replaced the 1950s-era blowdown drum/vent stack that served the raffinate splitter tower with an identical system, instead of upgrading to recommended alternatives that were safer.
• In 2002, engineers at the plant proposed replacing the blowdown drum/vent system as part of an environmental improvement initiative, but this line-item was cut from the budget, due to cost pressures.
• Also in 2002, an opportunity to tie the ISOM relief system into the new NDU flare system was not taken, due to a $150,000 incremental cost.
• During 2002, BP’s Clean Streams project proposed converting the blowdown drum to a flare knock-out tank, and routing discharges to a flare. When it was found that a needed relief study of the ISOM system had not been completed due to budget constraints, the Clean Streams project proposed adding a wet/dry system to the ISOM instead.
• Between 1994 and 2004, at least eight similar cases occurred in which flammable vapors were emitted by a blowdown drum/vent stack. Effective corrective action was not taken at the BP plant.

As a result of the accident, BP said that it would eliminate all blowdown drums/vent stack systems in flammable service. The CSB, meanwhile, recommended to the American Petroleum Institute that guidelines on the location of trailers be made.

OSHA ultimately found over 300 safety violations and fined BP $21 million—the largest fine in OSHA history at the time.