Blast hits BP Texas City refinery (Oh oh... here it comes!)

Thanks for the ping.

That great depression did set a lot of minds in concrete....

Because providers, in an effort to increase profit, will increase the supply. Or, the consumers of the product, because of the high cost, will begin to decrease their use. Or a combination of the two.

Or, in two words: The Market. ;-)

The refinery also ranks as the eighth largest polluter in the state of Texas.

ELF did it.

OH crap.

Gas is already 2.15 here. Here, in Kansas for crying out loud....

I just think about those Europeans paying 4-5 bucks though and I still can smile.

http://quotes.ino.com/exchanges/?e=NYMEX

No huge changes here.

I worked in a refinery before I became a lawyer. I worked as a contractor in the Amoco (Now BP) plant. There is no reason anyone was on site when that unit was starting up except for the operators. It makes me so sad that people no where near the start up died from this accident.

The BP refinery has so many units that they can by pass a few and it will not affect their total output. Their probelm has to do with a lack of support staff and engineers. They have contracted out so many jobs that I doubt they have enough people (engineers, supervisors) on each unit. I was in this plant as a contractor from 1991 to 1996. It runs way differently. There is no reason why they should have any accidents like this.

Yes, the surprising thing was to learn that the contractors killed were in a staff meeting in a different structure when this happened. I had assumed that all the victims were operators starting up the unit that exploded.

Instead, they saw what was going to happen and ran for their lives.

Let me share my personal story of this tragic event. I was about to prepare lunch when my grandmother cried out for help. Thinking she was sick, I grabbed her, and then all of a sudden, there was a sonic boom followed by the sound of air and debris slamming into the windows. My parents' house shook, and then confusion ensude.
Had the crew working a couple of blocks over hit a gas line?" I asked myself. Then, there's that split second reaction that no, that was the refinery. I stepped outside to see a column of smoke bluish gray, black, and then white smoke rising about 500 feet into the air. As I watched the smoke, two Texas City Police Department cars came zipping by the house, lights and sirens ablaze. Walking to the corner where my grandmother lived, it was apparent this was serious.
It looked as though all the refineries were engulfed in flames. Dow Chemical is next door and their alarms sounded and then quickly went off again indicating that it was not their refinery. Once again, BP was the cuplrit.
A year ago on April 30th, a fire at Ultraformer 4 lit up the night sky. That was just a dull thud as though someone had accidentally ran into the house with a lawnmower or something. The civil defense alarms sounded, indicating everyone should go inside because the incident was at level 4. That means the incident has breached the borders of the refinery. In this situation, it was smoke.
As news of the fire spread, I heard the sounds of helicopters. After almost 30 years of living about a half mile from the refineries, I knew from the sound of the engine the media had arrived. The smoke lessened in intensity as the fire came under control.
After about 3 o' clock, the fire was out completely, but then I heard another sound. One that sends chills through me in any situation. That was the sound of medical helicopters. On TV, I saw that there had been more than 100 injured, and one station reported 4 dead. The most seriously injured went to University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, one to Memorial Hermann Hospital in Houston, and a little more than 50 each went to Mainland Medical Center and Clear Lake Regional Hospital.
As the investigation has gone on, a lot of information has come to light. Information that points mostly to OSHA. In 1992, they asked Amoco to install a flare on the isom unit.
The case was eventually dropped and the file deleted according to a Houston Chronicle article. In September last year, one man was killed, and two were injured when they were burned by steam. Later on, one of those men died. So what does OSHA do? They settle with BP for a lesser amount to get the unit back online. And this is a pattern that's gone on for more than 30 years now.
In 1981, Ultraformer 1, isom's predecessor, blew apart. No one was killed. Why? Because the unit was being brought back online at night. I can tell you from living here, it's noisy at night because of shut downs and restarts.
Industries, not OSHA, set the standard for the distance trailers should be from a unit that's being resetarted.
JE Merritt, the contractor, had a similiar incident in Pennsylvania a few years back where their trailers were too close to a unit and a couple of workers died. This time, 15 workers died because they were in a trailer having a meeting. One of them was an office worker who should not have even been there.
There's also evidence that some component of the isom unit had catastrophic failure. The raffinate splitter is supposed to send the octane booster into the unit. It failed and instead sent it into the atmosphere. OSHA didn't like that, but they let Amoco get away with it because they were too damn lazy to do it. 15 people might be alive today if they hadn't ignored OSHA's warning.
Another possible culprit could be an idling vehicle close to the unit. Instead of cutting off the engine as safety rules supposedly state, the driver instead revved the engine in an attempt to move it.
So pick a scapegoat. The fact remains 15 people died in the process of making gasoline. Rather than complaining about the price of gasoline, write to your representatives and your senators and ask them to get tough on OSHA. Think about the millions of dollars in fines and lawsuits BP is facing because OSHA gave them a slap on the wrist instead of getting tough on them.