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Navajo refinery. Photo by Glembly
Less than a month before a deadly explosion March 2 at a Navajo Refinery asphalt storage tank in Artesia killed two workers and seriously injured two others, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board had completed a new report entitled, “Seven Key Lessons to Prevent Worker Deaths During Hot Work In and Around Tanks.”
The report emphasizes the importance of using on-site gas monitoring equipment before welding at or near petrochemical storage tanks. According to the report, more than 60 workers have been killed since 1990 in at least 11 separate explosions nationwide.
Two days after the Artesia explosion, the Board released a new safety video warning of the hazards of welding near storage tanks.
It is unclear whether on-site gas monitoring was being used or used properly the day of the Artesia explosion — or whether doing so could have saved the lives of Natividad Andajo or Victor Villa, the workers who were killed.
The New Mexico Occupational Health and Safety Bureau is still investigating the Artesia explosion and should have a report ready before the end of the year, bureau chief Butch Tongate told The Independent.
But Tongate could not comment on the use of a gas monitor because of the ongoing investigation. A refinery representative did not respond to an e-mail asking about gas monitoring the day of the explosion.
Nationwide trend
The Artesia investigation comes at a time of increasing nationwide scrutiny of safety practices at U.S. refineries, where crude oil is turned into gasoline, butane, jet fuel, kerosene and other fuels.
The exact scope of the refinery safety problem is unclear because refinery fatality statistics are not specifically tracked by the U.S. Department of Labor.
But news reports nationwide suggest at least 15 refinery workers have been killed this year alone, including the two men killed in the Navajo refinery explosion, six killed in a February explosion at the Kleen Energy refinery in Middletown, Connecticut, and seven killed in the April 2 Tesoro refinery blast in Washington state.
Other workers die each year in accidents at other oil industry facilities, like BP’s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, where an explosion killed 11 workers.
Perhaps the most infamous refinery accident was BP’s 2005 Texas City refinery explosion, which killed 15 workers and injured more than 100. Since 2007, BP has been cited for more than 700 safety violations by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA).
Smaller oil refineries are not immune to such problems, either. Last month, Utah state regulators fined the Silver Eagle refinery in Woods Cross, Utah more than $1 million for dozens of safety violations after an explosion last November that seriously damaged 10 nearby homes and blew one house off its foundation.
Insurance company Swiss Re reported in a 2008 analysis that U.S. refineries suffer four times the economic losses due to accidents as refineries in the rest of the world, because U.S. refineries emphasize “pushing the operating envelope” to maximize production.
Officials from the refining industry have said their industry is unfairly maligned.
National Petrochemical and Refiners Association President Charlie Drevna has pointed out that refineries have a lower injury rate than the manufacturing industry as a whole.
But that compares apples and oranges — manufacturing injuries that are mostly relatively minor slips and falls, with life-threatening burns and blast injuries from refinery explosions and fires — OSHA chief David Michaels has said.
New rules will increase penalties for safety violations
The 2007 state Occupational Safety and Health Bureau inspections of the Navajo refinery in Artesia, which led to nine safety violation citations in 2008, were part of a nationwide refinery safety evaluation push coordinated by OSHA.
In most states, the federal OSHA conducts workplace safety inspections. But in some states, including New Mexico, the state oversees workplace safety.
Last month, OSHA began implementation of a new ‘Severe Violator Enforcement Program,’ which will allow patterns of safety violations in one state to prompt inspections of a company’s facilities nationwide.
The agency is also increasing the cost of fines imposed for safety violations, for only the second time in 40 years. The last time penalties were increased was in 1990.
Under the new rules, the average penalty for “serious,” or potential life-threatening, violations will increase from about $1,000 to between $3,000 and $4,000, according to an OSHA press release.
But new penalties will be counterproductive, Drevna said.
“There has been significant progress over the years, as facilities continually enhance their safety programs,” Drevna said in testimony before the U.S. Senate Subcommittee on Employment and Workplace Safety last month. “There is no tolerable level of workplace-related incidents. Our goal is to reduce these to zero, and we will do everything possible to reach that goal. We believe that the best way to improve safety in our industry is to work in cooperation – rather than confrontation – with all stakeholders: OSHA, the Chemical Safety Board, labor unions, contractors and Congress.”
