from Sunday Herald, 27 June 2010
The troubled oil giant, BP, has broken vital health and safety rules 54 times over the past five years in the UK, according to the government watchdog, the Health and Safety Executive (HSE).
The British multinational corporation, under international condemnation for its polluting gusher in the Gulf of Mexico, has been accused of a series of maintenance and operating lapses which put workers and the environment at risk from major leaks, fires and accidents in the North Sea and elsewhere.
As a result BP companies have been served with 21 legal enforcement notices since 2006 by HSE, requiring lax and dangerous practices to be improved. The company, however, has not been prosecuted by the watchdog since 2005.
The revelations have been greeted with horror by experts and environmentalists, appalled at BP’s track record in the UK. The company’s failings here are directly linked to the unfolding disaster in the Gulf of Mexico after the explosion of the Deepwater Horizon rig in April, they say.
An analysis of the HSE enforcement database by the Sunday Herald shows that four BP companies - BP Exploration, BP Oil UK, BP Chemicals and BP Shipping - have been hit with legal notices in the last five years. Altogether, there have been 54 breaches of eight health and safety laws or regulations (see table below).
The breaches cover three North Sea rigs - Schiehallion, Magnus and Cleeton - the Grangemouth complex near Falkirk, the oil terminal at Sullom Voe in Shetland, and other plants in Hull, Carlisle and elsewhere. According to HSE, some of the lapses were potentially very serious.
At Grangemouth in June 2007, HSE served an improvement notice on BP Oil UK “for not taking all measures necessary to prevent major accidents and limit their consequences to persons and the environment”. The company had failed to conduct “a suitable and sufficient assessment of human factors”.
On the Schiehallion rig in December 2006, BP Exploration was told it had “not taken appropriate measures to prevent the uncontrolled release of flammable substances”. A wrap used to block a leakage from a pipeline in 2004 was thought to be deteriorating.
Also at Schiehallion in December 2006, BP Exploration was said to be risking a fire by storing flammable materials in the wrong places. At the same time, a leaking hydraulic control panel on the rig had “not been maintained in an efficient state, efficient work order and in good repair.”
On the Magnus rig, BP Exploration was also accused in March 2008 of failing to “ensure so far as is reasonably practicable the health and safety of your employees and others” Steelwork, walkways, stairways and handrails were alleged to be in a poor state of repair.
Poor inspection of pipes at Sullom Voe caused “defects which have ultimately lead to loss of containment of dangerous substances”, said HSE in October 2006.
Rory O’Neill, professor of occupational health research at the University of Stirling, was scathing about BP’s record. “BP has almost cornered the market on official health and safety reprimands in the US and it is deeply concerning that it is clearly failing to operate safely in the UK too,” he said.
“The company’s egregious failings on safety can be traced, oily footprint by oily footprint, to decisions made and policies enforced by its London-based board. Those boardroom failings apply equally to its approach in the UK as they do in the US.”
Professor O’Neill, who has been monitoring BP for over a decade, also attacked the HSE for failing to take a tough enough approach towards the company in the UK. “HSE turned a blind eye to the cost-cutting, throat-cutting behaviour of a multinational operating on its patch,” he said.
“HSE should have had its foot on the throat of BP. Instead BP has wrapped the increasingly toothless and resource-starved watchdog round its finger.”
HSE, however, defended its record, saying that the regulatory action it took was “proportionate to the level of risk”. Said an HSE spokeswoman: “Where we find breaches of the law or a failure to meet safety standards, we will take enforcement action to prevent harm to workers and members of the public.”
BP argued that its safety performance in the North Sea was good and improving. The company operated 45 producing oil and gas fields, three major terminals and 10 pipeline systems, a spokesman pointed out.
He said: “Given the scale and nature of the business we believe we have received a relatively small number of improvement notices from the HSE over the years. Each of these is dealt with professionally, on a case by case basis, and used to improve our performance.”
The company’s safety record compared well to that of others, the spokesman continued. “We are never complacent and are continually looking at ways to reduce even the smallest of leaks.”
But environmentalists disagree. “Companies like BP and Shell have for years been taking shortcuts with safety that risk human life, the environment, and people's pensions,” said Juliet Swann from Friends of the Earth Scotland.
“Shockingly, the behaviour of these oil giants in the UK and the US is immeasurably better than their activities in the global South. In Nigeria, oil companies ignore spills, never clean up, and continue illegal gas flaring which pollutes the atmosphere and releases carbon dioxide.”
BP’s safety flaws in the UK
date of legal notice / location / what happened / number of health and safety breaches
November 2009 / Schiehallion / unsafe operation of oil tanker / 2
November 2009 / Schiehallion / unsafe operation of oil tanker / 2
July 2008 / Northern Leg gas pipeline / valve fault / 1
March 2008 / Magnus / failing to safely maintain rig / 4
June 2007 / Grangemouth / failing to reduce risk of major accident / 3
May 2007 / Hull / insufficient investigation of potential accidents / 3
May 2007 / Hull / failure to assess major accident hazards / 3
March 2007 / Schiehallion / backlog maintaining safety equipment / 2
March 2007 / Coryton refinery / safety incident at site / 5
February 2007 / Magnus / catastrophic failure of chiller / 1
December 2006 / Schiehallion / faulty repair of oil leak / 4
December 2006 / Schiehallion / flawed repair of fuel line damaged by fire / 2
December 2006 / Schiehallion / unsafe storage of flammable material / 1
December 2006 / Schiehallion / leaking oil due to poor maintenance / 1
December 2006 / Schiehallion / faulty valve operation / 3
December 2006 / Schiehallion / deck awash with seawater from leaks / 3
November 2006 / Coryton Refinery / risk of flammable vapours escaping / 5
October 2006 / Sullom Voe / leaks from pipelines / 1
September 2006 / Cleeton / failure to test emergency shutdown valves / 4
March 2006 / Carlisle / failure to safely man oil transfer / 2
March 2006 / Carlisle / failure to safely man oil transfer / 2
source: Health and Safety Executive
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