BP Products North America will pay $13 million to settle allegations of willful violations of federal safety laws.
The Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said that BP resolved 409 of the 439 citations issued by the agency in October 2009 for willful violations of OSHA’s process safety management standard at BP’s refinery in Texas City, Texas.
Under the agreement, BP will pay $13,027,000 in penalties, and already has abated or will abate all existing violations by the end of 2012.
“Make no mistake, the scope of this agreement should send a clear signal that OSHA is committed to ensuring BP takes seriously the safety and health of America’s most important natural resource – its workers,” said OSHA’s Dr. David Michaels.
In September 2005, OSHA cited BP for a then-record $21 million as a result of the explosion at its Texas City refinery that killed 15 workers in March of that year.
Upon issuance of the citations, the parties entered into an agreement that required BP to identify and correct deficiencies.
In a 2009 follow-up investigation to evaluate BP’s performance under the 2005 agreement, OSHA found that although BP had made improvements at the plant, the company had failed to correct a number of items, which led OSHA to issue 270 failure-to-abate notices.
In a 2010 settlement, BP agreed to pay a penalty of $50.6 million to resolve those notices.
Also in 2009, OSHA cited BP for 439 willful violations of the agency’s PSM standard, including failing to follow industry-accepted engineering practices for pressure relief safety systems.
Those citations carried total proposed penalties of $30.7 million.
Under the current agreement, all violations covered in this settlement have been corrected or will be corrected by December 31, 2012, using the procedures established under the 2010 agreement.
Under the 2010 agreement with OSHA, independent third-party experts provided oversight of BP processes for relief and safety instrumented system evaluation, as well as quarterly progress reports on BP’s activity.
The 2010 agreement also required BP to hire independent experts to monitor BP’s efforts and obligated the company to allocate $500 million to ensure safety at the Texas City refinery.
Of the 439 October 2009 willful citations, all but 30 were settled by the agreement.