BP Internal Report Reveals Near-Miss Accidents
14 December 2016 - 3:20AM
Dow Jones News
LONDON—BP PLC has had several near-miss accidents at facilities
around the world caused by lapses in how it handles engineering
data, an internal report has found, six years after a fatal blowout
in the Gulf of Mexico exposed its safety problems.
One 2014 incident involved an undefined "high potential"
incident at its Whiting refinery near Chicago that cost the company
$258 million in lost output of oil products, said the internal 2015
report viewed by The Wall Street Journal. Other potentially
dangerous safety lapses occurred at facilities in Germany and the
U.K., the report said.
The report comes after BP has spent much of the last six years
seeking to repair the damage to its business caused by the
Deepwater Horizon accident in 2010. The report, which the company
confirmed was authentic, was obtained by Greenpeace and first
reported by U.K.'s Financial Times newspaper.
BP said the report was part of its regular internal safety
assessments undertaken to improve operations. The British oil giant
said its safety record has steadily improved over the last five
years.
The report "is not an analysis of any operational incidents, and
any suggestion that this report indicates BP is wavering from its
safety commitment is wrong," a BP spokesman said in an email.
The company revamped its approach to safety after its 2010
blowout killed 11 people and spewed millions of barrels of oil into
the Gulf. It created a new division to toughen oversight and
changed its pay structure to better reward risk management.
The internal report said the company wasn't properly handling
what it called "engineering information"—important blueprints,
specifications for its facilities' infrastructure such as pipes,
and other equipment information. It found examples of blueprints
going missing and important safety devices having the wrong parts
and settings.
The report said BP's practices lagged behind those of top
competitors like Royal Dutch Shell PLC. It identified the
Anglo-Dutch oil company as leading the pack thanks to efforts
already undertaken to improve the consistency,accuracy and
availability of information throughout the company.
The report, published last year and authored by BP managers with
consultants from IBM and Worley Parsons, outlined several costly
and sometimes dangerous incidents caused by mistakes, though it
gave scant detail.
At the company's Whiting refinery—a sprawling 1,400-acre complex
near downtown Chicago—the report blamed "multiple deficiencies" in
the management of engineering information for the costly 2014
incident that raised safety concerns.
At BP's Lingen refinery in West Germany, the misinterpretation
of blueprints caused equipment to be used incorrectly and led to
"repeated near misses," the report said. On another occasion at
Whiting, inaccurate data caused the control system to accidentally
flare all the fuel in one unit, breaching environmental rules, the
report said.
Though the report focused on BP's refining and petrochemicals
business, it also mentioned deficiencies in its exploration and
production arm. It said the unit responsible for drilling and
pumping BP's oil reserves had "further work to do" to match
competitors' management of information and data, but is
"significantly ahead" of the company's refining business.
Write to Sarah Kent at sarah.kent@wsj.com
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
December 13, 2016 11:05 ET (16:05 GMT)
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