BP: Putting Profits Before Safety?

On January 16, 2007, the Baker report was released at Houston, Texas. As expected, the Baker report was very critical of BP's approach to process safety at its refineries in the US. The panel said that a lack of focus on manufacturing process safety on BP's part contributed to the March 2005 accident in Texas. It said that BP had failed to give process safety the same emphasis that it gave to personal safety and environmental initiatives. The report said that the management should have paid more attention to earlier incidents, such as product chemical releases and fires at the plant. The Baker report also said that the top management at BP had failed, as they had apparently ignored concerns raised by lower-level employees...

Analysts felt that BP was already on the “right track” as far as its safety culture was concerned. They expected BP to spend generously on process safety experts, health and safety auditors, process engineers, etc. Expenditure on equipment was also expected to rise. Some experts felt that the order from the top was to spend – and this time as before, the employees would fall in line and obey. Some analysts felt that it would be a tough task for anyone to fit into Browne's shoes. But on the positive side, Browne was leaving behind a “strong and well-positioned” oil company...