labor lawAdivision of labor law center

Oil refineries are now a major priority for OSHA, the Occupational Safety and Health Administration. The agency has inspected 150 refineries throughout the U.S. so far, and plans to inspect every refinery under its jurisdiction.

That’s a definite benefit to Oklahoma worker safety, and good news for the people of Oklahoma.

OSHA wants to prevent another tragedy like the one in 2005 at a Houston area refinery owned and operated by BP. The disaster killed 15 workers and injured more than 100. That catastrophe also rained down ash on neighboring areas and took 3% of America’s total oil supply out of production. The dramatic reduction in refinery capacity as a result of the tragedy accounted partly for high gas prices in the summer of 2006. The plant had employed 1,800 workers and refined 433,000 gallons of crude oil daily.

The agency ratcheted up its focus on oil refinery worker safety when it inspected another BP plant in Ohio about 6 months later. It found that BP had not corrected any of the problems found at the Houston plant. And it decided that oil refinery companies had no intention of protecting their workers voluntarily. So it embarked on its tough inspection program.

That, and a report coming out of a hearing by the Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB), led OSHA to hire and train new refinery inspectors.

“To date, we have trained more than 160 OSHA staff in the principles of conducting a Process Safety Management (PSM) inspection,” said Assistant Secretary of Labor for OSHA Edwin G. Foulke Jr., “and by August of this year we will have 280 PSM-trained inspectors.” Thanks to the hiring and training, OSHA should be able to inspect every refinery under its jurisdiction.

This year OSHA and its state affiliates have inspected 50 refineries. Last year, they inspected a total of more than 100 refinery inspections.

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