Texas City: a 'preventable incident'

Since BPs disaster at Texas refinery, health and safety has gone to unprecedented levels.

IN SPRING 2005, the processing unit that increased octane levels in unleaded gasoline at the BP refinery in Texas City, Texas, overfilled and overheated. Hydrocarbon vapours flowed into the atmosphere, came in contact with an ignition source and exploded. The resulting inferno left 15 workers dead and more than 170 injured. The disaster, at the US' third-largest refinery, was the worst workplace accident in the country in 15 years and represented the first refining fatality since 2001. Officials investigating the explosion identified an assortment of root causes: from a lack of safety leadership and effective safety controls, to workers' disregard of procedures and rules. As BP's senior grou