Sulfur Trioxide leak at BASF plant in Missouri
Mar 23, 2010- A BASF facility in Northeast Missouri had a leakage of Sulfur Trioxide, a highly toxic gas that can cause severe injuries if inhaled or ingested. Contact with water results in the formation of Sulfuric Acid.
The Missouri Department of Natural Resources were trying to estimate how much of the gas was released at the plant. A large section of the Mississipi river was shut down by the Coast Guard to boat traffic for hours . Reports say that people at BASF and other facilities in the vicinity had to be evacuated to safety. The cloud of gas is now traveling towards Illinois, but it was unclear as to how it could be dispersed in a safe way. As of now, no injuries have been reported.
The release apparently occured to a mechanical failure in the plant that resulted in the gas being vented through a stack. The BASF facility produces agrochemical products. German origin BASF, that owns the facility is supposed to be the largest chemical company in the world with nearly a hundred thousand employees worldwide.
Everything that you wanted to know about Safety Instrumented Systems but didn’t know whom to ask!
Jan1, 2010 – Miami, FL
Abhisam Software has just announced the release of their much awaited e-learning course on Safety Instrumented Systems. From the sneak previews that were shown to us last week, this course looks to be smashing. A hell of lot of use of Flash based animations and interactive simulations, real world solved problems and easy to understand text makes this a no brainer for anybody who wishes to understand Safety Instrumented Systems.
So if you are an Instrument engineer, Safety Manager, Control Systems engineer or other professional involved in Safety Instrumented Systems (known by various aliases in the process industry like Safety Shutdown Systems, Emergency Shutdown Systems, etc) then you must have this course with you. Consisting of seven modules the course covers the entire gamut of SIS including hazard and risk analysis, safety integrity level, standards, maintenance-the whole nine yards. Plus the price is ridiculously low in our opinion-just $157 for the early birds. If you compare this with the prices of other courses, seminars and books for the content that you will get, its a no brainer! Get it now and the mists around esoteric terms like SIL 3, IEC 61511, etc should all clear away in a jiffy.
Find out more here.
Pressure Vessel safety standards-eleven states still don’t believe in the ASME code!
Nov 09, 2009- The US Chemical Safety Board has released a new safety message regarding the safety of pressure vessel. Improperly installed or modified pressure vessels have led to a number of serious chemical accidents. Eleven states still don’t require adherence to the ASME pressure vessel code! ( And we thought that such negilgent behavior was only to be found in the so called “third world” countries).
The CSB urges that all states and localities should adopt this code and related boiler standards; lives will be saved as a result.
It is high time that the CSB be given powers similar to OSHA to ensure compliance of basic standards in chemical manufacturing plants.
Surprisingly, amongst the places that have not yet made the ASME code mandatory is the city of Houston! Shocking, to say the least!!
On a side note, if you are looking for a great guide to hazardous area classification, download the Area Classification ebook here. And if you opt for the Hazardous Area Instrumentation training course, you can get it for free.
Indian Oil fire in Jaipur continues to burn-faulty operation blamed
Nov 1, 2009- Even after several days have passed, the fire that started in an Indianoil storage tank farm at Jaipur, India continues to burn with intermittent explosions also being reported. After many hours of futile efforts of firefighting, the authorities say that they will allow the fire to burn itself out. Several fatalities have been reported due to the initial blast and subsequent fire, but could not be independently verified. Here is a footage of the fire from a posting on YouTube.
A faulty operation involving transfer of volatile hydrocarbons from tank trucks caused a spillage and is said to be the cause of the accident, although what caused the ignition of this spill is not clear.
BP fined $87 million over Texas refinery safety issues by OSHA
Oct-30, 2009 Washington- The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) today announced it is issuing $87,430,000 in proposed penalties to BP Products North America Inc. for the company’s failure to correct potential hazards faced by employees. The fine is the largest in OSHA’s history. The prior largest total penalty, $21 million, was issued in 2005, also against BP.
Safety violations at BP’s Texas City, Texas, refinery resulted in a massive explosion — with 15 deaths and 170 people injured – in March of 2005. BP entered into a settlement agreement with OSHA in September of that year, under which the company agreed to corrective actions to eliminate potential hazards similar to those that caused the 2005 tragedy. Today’s announcement comes at the conclusion of a six-month inspection by OSHA, designed to evaluate the extent to which BP has complied with its obligations under the 2005 agreement and OSHA standards.
“When BP signed the OSHA settlement from the March 2005 explosion, it agreed to take comprehensive action to protect employees. Instead of living up to that commitment, BP has allowed hundreds of potential hazards to continue unabated,” said Secretary of Labor Hilda L. Solis. “Fifteen people lost their lives as a result of the 2005 tragedy, and 170 others were injured. An $87 million fine won’t restore those lives, but we can’t let this happen again. Workplace safety is more than a slogan. It’s the law. The U.S. Department of Labor will not tolerate the preventable exposure of workers to hazardous conditions.”
For noncompliance with the terms of the settlement agreement, the BP Texas City Refinery has been issued 270 “notifications of failure to abate” with fines totaling $56.7 million. Each notification represents a penalty of $7,000 times 30 days, the period that the conditions have remained unabated. OSHA also identified 439 new willful violations for failures to follow industry-accepted controls on the pressure relief safety systems and other process safety management violations with penalties totaling $30.7 million.
“BP was given four years to correct the safety issues identified pursuant to the settlement agreement, yet OSHA has found hundreds of violations of the agreement and hundreds of new violations. BP still has a great deal of work to do to assure the safety and health of the employees who work at this refinery,” said acting Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Jordan Barab.
The BP Texas City Refinery is the third largest refinery in the United States with a refining capacity of 475,000 barrels of crude per day. It is located on a 1,200-acre facility in Texas City, southeast of Houston in Galveston County.
Will this large fine serve up a wakeup call to company managements regarding the importance of following safety guidelines and good engineering practices? Only time will tell….
