OSHA to Train More Workers for Refinery Inspections

The Occupational Safety and Health Administration said yesterday that it would nearly double the number of workers trained to perform advanced inspections of oil refineries called for in a government report released this week.

The Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board's report criticized the agency's oversight of BP's Texas City, Tex., refinery before the 2005 explosion that killed 15 people and injured more than 170.

The report said the British oil company's Texas City plant has had several fatal accidents in 30 years but that OSHA completed only one process safety management inspection there since 1998.

OSHA did few of the comprehensive safety inspections nationally from 1995 to 2005, according to the report, which recommended that the agency increase the number of inspections and government inspectors.

After a hearing on the Texas City disaster by the House Committee on Education and Labor, Edwin G. Foulke Jr., assistant secretary of labor for OSHA, said more than 160 agency workers had been trained "in the principles of conducting a process safety management inspection," a number expected to reach 280 by August.

"These staff will ensure that under a new national emphasis program, every refinery under OSHA's jurisdiction is inspected," Foulke said. The agency and its state partners conducted more than 100 refinery inspections last year and have done 50 in fiscal 2007.