BP Texas City Refinery, 2005: A Tower Overfilled and Trailers in the Wrong Place
A distillation tower flooded with hydrocarbons during start-up and released a geyser from the vent stack. Fifteen workers died, many in trailers close to the release.
Chemical & Process · Last reviewed
What happened
At about 1:20 p.m. on March 23, 2005, a series of explosions occurred at the BP Texas City refinery while a hydrocarbon isomerization unit was being restarted. Fifteen workers were killed and 180 others were injured. Many of the victims were in or around work trailers located near an atmospheric vent stack.
What the CSB found
- The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) reports that the explosions happened when a distillation tower flooded with hydrocarbons and was overpressurized, causing a geyser-like release from the vent stack.
- The CSB issued a final investigation report and also published separate reports on management of change and on positive material verification.
- Among the CSB recommendations is one to the American Petroleum Institute to revise Recommended Practice 752, which covers management of hazards associated with the location of process plant buildings, in light of the findings.
Apply the lesson
- Where do people work or gather near equipment that can release flammable material? Map them against the vent, relief and flare locations.
- During a start-up or a shutdown, what instruments tell the operator how full a vessel is? What if one reads wrong?
- Are temporary buildings, such as trailers, covered by the same siting review as permanent ones?
Engineering lesson: a release that cannot be fully prevented must not reach people. Keep occupied buildings out of the hazard zone, and treat start-up as the highest-risk phase.
What the CSB recommended
The CSB investigation page lists 23 recommendations for this incident. Examples, in summary:
- To the American Petroleum Institute: revise Recommended Practice 752, or issue a new practice, to ensure the safe placement of occupied trailers and similar temporary structures, and issue a safety alert asking members to place occupied trailers away from hazardous areas of process plants.
- To API: revise Recommended Practice 521 so that its guidelines identify overfilling of vessels as a hazard to evaluate when selecting and designing pressure relief and disposal systems.
- To industry bodies: develop new consensus ANSI standards, one that creates performance indicators for process safety in the refining and petrochemical industries, and another with fatigue prevention guidelines that limit hours and days of work.
- To the company: commission an independent panel to assess the effectiveness of its corporate oversight of safety management systems at its refineries and its corporate safety culture.
Related tools and labs
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Questions
Where is the official report?
The CSB investigation page, linked below, has the final report, the management-of-change report and the recommendations.
What is process safety?
The management of hazards from processes that handle hazardous materials, covering design, operation, maintenance, change management and incident learning. It is separate from personal safety such as slips and falls.
How many recommendations did the CSB make?
The CSB page lists 23 recommendations for this investigation, addressed to the company, industry bodies, standards organizations and others.
Did the CSB address occupied trailers?
Yes. It recommended that API revise its practice on the siting of process plant buildings, or issue a new one, to ensure the safe placement of occupied trailers, and that API alert its members.
Educational material. Examples use simplified, hypothetical inputs and are not a design, a construction document or professional engineering advice. Confirm requirements with the codes and standards adopted where the work is built and with a licensed engineer.