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43 | Petroleum and Beyond

B

Rettishi p RoLeuM LAunched a $200 million public-relations

campaign in 2000 to style itself as “Beyond Petroleum.” It empha-

sized, however, that its safety motto was still “No accidents. No

harm to people and no damage to the environment.”^1

At BP’s refinery in Texas City, Texas, a sobering safety study was re-

leased in January of 2005. While profits were soaring after rounds of

cost-cutting, the plant’s 2,000 workers had an “exceptional degree of

fear” that a catastrophe could occur at any moment. Corporate culture

prevented critical safety information from reaching the top levels of BP

management. “Telling the managers what they want to hear, that gets

rewarded,” a worried worker told the auditors. “For example, one person

who had cut costs, done a lot of Band-Aids with maintenance and had a

quit-your-bellyaching attitude was rewarded in the last reorganization....

His replacement found that not a single pump was fit for service... .”^2

On March 23, 2005, workers accidentally filled a tower with 138 feet of

flammable liquid when 6^1 ⁄ 2 feet was the threshold of safety. “The win-

dow on the tower that the workers might have used to spot their mistake

was so dirty that they couldn’t see how much fluid was inside, and the

gauge that was supposed to measure the height of the liquid wasn’t de-

signed to measure more than 10 feet. Some safety devices that should

have sounded an alarm failed—others were ignored.”^3

A cloud of gas spewed from a containment drum next to the overfilled

tower. It “sank to the ground in a clear fog, bending the air in wavy lines

like the ones that settle on the horizon on a hot day. When the gas found

a spark in an idling truck 25 feet away, it triggered an explosion so power-

ful that it shattered windows of nearby homes.” Fifteen people died and

more than 180 were injured.^4

At the mandate of the U.S. Chemical Safety Board, BP funded an inde-

pendent safety review. Former secretary of state James A. Baker III agreed

to head the 11-member panel, promising it would “let the chips fall where

they may.”^5