Texas City Refinery Explosion - Subsequent Incidents

Subsequent Incidents

After the March explosion, other safety incidents occurred at the plant:

• On July 28, 2005, a hydrogen gas heat exchanger pipe on the resid hydrotreater unit ruptured, causing a release of hydrogen that erupted into a large fireball. One person received minor injuries. The Chemical Safety Board found that a contractor had accidentally switched a carbon steel pipe elbow with a low-alloy steel elbow during maintenance, causing a failure mode known as “high temperature hydrogen attack” (HTHA). The CSB found that BP had not informed the maintenance contractor that the elbows were different, and the maintenance contractor had not used any procedure (such as tagging) to ensure that the elbows were re-installed into their original locations.

• On August 10, 2005, there was an incident in a gas-oil hydrotreater that resulted in a community order to shelter. This incident occurred when a hole developed in the bottom of a valve that handles high-pressure gas and oil.

• On January 14, 2008, William Joseph Gracia, 56, a veteran BP operations supervisor, died following head injuries sustained as workers prepared to place in service a water filtration vessel at the refinery's ultracracker unit.

• On September 21, 2010, an incident in the Pipestill 3B unit left two workers with serious steam burns. The details of this incident are still under investigation.