New record OSHA fine: BP to pay $50.6M
August 13, 2010 by Fred HosierPosted in: BP, Fatality, In this week's e-newsletter, Injuries, Latest News & Views, cost of safety, fire/explosion
Once again, BP will pay the largest fine in OSHA history, breaking its own previous record. But, the oil giant also faces a half-billion dollars in additional costs as part of its settlement with the federal safety agency.
The fines are in connection to the 2005 explosion at BP’s Texas City, TX, refinery that killed 15 workers and injured 170.
BP had already paid $21 million in fines for that explosion. In the original settlement, BP also agreed to identify and correct certain safety deficiencies.
In a 2009 follow-up inspection, OSHA found the company made many changes but “failed to live up to several extremely important terms of that agreement,” according to OSHA.
As a result, OSHA issued $87.4 million in penalties against BP. Originally, $56.7 million was levied for BP’s failure to abate hazards it said it would fix in the original agreement. Another approximately $30 million was for new violations. OSHA found it had assessed 29 duplicate violations totaling $6.1 million. That brought the failure-to-abate fines down to $50.6 million.
So BP has agreed to pay the entire $50.6 million for the failure-to-abate fines. It is still contesting the $30 million in new violations.
On top of the fine, BP has agreed to allocate a minimum of $500 million to take immediate steps to protect those now working at the refinery.
BP has also agreed to:
- perform safety reviews of the refinery equipment according to set schedules
- hire independent experts to monitor its efforts, and
- submit quarterly reports for OSHA’s review.
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Tags: BP Texas City refinery explosion, failure-to-abate fines, largest OSHA fine
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August 13th, 2010 at 6:26 am
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August 13th, 2010 at 9:30 am
I wonder how many people were injured or killed between the 2005 post-explosion inspection and the 2009 followup inspection. I understand OSHA is grossly understaffed but when you have a company that clearly isn’t following the rules and people are dying because of it, it should not take 4 years to make sure the corrected the problems. BP really just doesn’t seem to give a $#@%
They are being hit from all sides…
http://www.fairwarning.org/2010/08/texas-accuses-bp-of-illegally-discharging-500000-pounds-of-toxic-pollutants/
August 13th, 2010 at 12:08 pm
Air pollution from toxic chemicals that were allowed to escape into the atmosphere, by a non-shutdown now may be affecting people’s health. In the recent past, explosions killing people in US refineries, an oil leak from faulty equipment with the interruption of a whole costal regions economy, and possibly just avoiding destroying a biosphere. Then there is the possibility of major damage to folk and wildlife in the near and far future. This is appalling and it goes on and on……….. Could this also tie in with a former president commenting that big business would clean up the environment because it was good for big business? I think this just proves in many business decisions the bottom line is the main thing. The only reason there is so much activity in the Gulf is it was public relations nightmare world wide. Now it is abating and corrective actions are being scaled back. Many, Many major companies seem to do this.
Follow Jasons link to read other reports also there is alot on The US Chemical Safety and Hazard board homepage