Feb 1- GALLATIN, Tenn. – Tuesday marked one year since a flash fire at the Hoeganaes plant in Gallatin killed two people.

Jan 28- OSHA has cited Loveland Products Inc. in Fairbury, Neb., for 25 safety violations, 14 of which relate directly to OSHA's standard regulating the process safety management...

Jan 27- The company said the major factors behind the 2011 output shortfall were the effect of higher prices on production sharing contracts, lower-than-expected performance at large new offshore projects in the Gulf of Mexico and Angola, and a third-party pipeline rupture and decreased demand in Thailand.

Jan 27- Marathon Petroleum Co., the former owner of the St. Paul Park oil refinery, paid a $700,000 civil penalty for failing to properly treat wastewater containing the chemical benzene, the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency announced.

Jan 24- Dozens of workers from the oil refinery industry hoped to create public awareness on Saturday afternoon with a message they believe resonates to a vital workforce in the region.

Jan 23 - According to a recent survey of offshore safety professionals conducted by Oil & Gas iQ, nearly three-quarters of survey respondents claimed there was more pressure on offshore operators ...

Jan 20- Marathon Petroleum has paid a $700,000 fine for an incident that happened in 2010. The Associated Press reports the civil penalty was assessed after benzene was released ...

Jan 20 - When industries feel they must constantly make things bigger and faster and more alluring, the labor force that must staff their goods, such as cruise ships, can fail to keep up with proper training. This, in turn, can lead to accidents.

Jan 19, GALLATIN, Tenn. — Fire inspectors have cited a Tennessee metal powders factory where five people died in accidents last year for 11 code violations.

Jan 15- Chevron Lubricants Lanka PLC, the pre-eminent marketer of Caltex branded lubricants Havoline, Delo and Lanka, this week announced the achievement of a decade of safety excellence ...

Jan 13, EDMOND, Okla. -- The Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating after an explosion at an Edmond plant.

Jan 11 PHOENIX – The ASM® Consortium, a group of leading companies and universities dedicated to the research and development of solutions optimizing the industrial control environment,

Jan 11, Independence, MO — The city of Independence is in court over unresolved disputes, many of them cost related, stemming from a 2006 explosion at the city’s main power plant.

Jan 10- Below is a list of the 10 most important things that chemical plant operators need to know about the new nationwide Chem NEP:

Jan 6- Three incidents last year that killed five workers at the Hoeganaes powdered metals plant in Gallatin, Tennessee, were "entirely preventable," according to the US Chemical Safety Board, who chastised the company for not taking adequate preventative safety measures.

Jan 05- The U.S. Chemical Safety Board will lobby the Occupational Safety and Health Administration to publish proposed safety rules within the next year to help prevent combustible-dust accidents after such incidents killed several workers in Gallatin last year.

Jan 3- A fire at the Stavrolen petrochemicals complex of the Lukoil group, Russia’s biggest independent oil producer, in mid-December is set to affect Russian market supplies of polyethylene and polypropylene.

Jan 3- Schwechat Refinery and its associated Lobau Tank Farm report that no working days were lost due to industrial accidents among OMV employees for a period of more than 1,000 days.

Jan 02- OSHA has launched a new national emphasis program (NEP) for chemical facilities. The goal is to protect workers from catastrophic releases of highly hazardous chemicals.

Dec 30- It's built upon a standard, distributed control architecture utilizing technology from the Abnormal Situation Management (ASM) Consortium and integrates enterprise-wide physical plant and computer systems security features.

Dec 28 - LukOil estimates damage caused by the fire at its Stavrolen petrochemical plant at around $25m.

Dec 26- Qatargas has become the first company in Qatar to secure accreditation from the UK-based Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) and the Institution of Chemical Engineers (IchemE)...

Dec 23, SAO PAULO - Brazil's environment inspector fined Chevron Corp 10 million reais ($5.4 million) on Friday for breaching ...

Dec 22- A preliminary hearing in the case of a boiler explosion at a downtown steam plant that killed one man and injured two others has been set to begin Nov. 19, 2012.

Dec 21, Hyderabad - Andhra Pradesh government has issued a notice to the city-based drug maker Aurobindo Pharma in connection with a fire accident last month that claimed lives of two workers at its manufacturing plant located in Srikakulam district

Dec 21, WAXAHACHIE — The company responsible for that massive chemical fire at a Waxahachie blending plant in October is now under additional scrutiny from state regulators

Dec 20- The case against a California company that employed five men who died in a power-plant fire near Georgetown — a rare instance of a corporation facing criminal charges — ended in an unsettled version of justice Monday.

Dec 20, OSLO -(Dow Jones)- Employees and subcontractors of Norwegian oil company Statoil (STO.OS) perceive the company's chain of command and drilling procedures as too complex...

Dec 19- Operators of oil and gas installations could do more to improve safety reps’ competence, particularly in relation to major operational hazard risks...

Dec 19- Honeywell (NYSE:HON) has been awarded a 15-year, $88.6 million contract to completely overhaul the technology controlling the massive wastewater treatment system in Los Angeles.

Dec 18- When industry officials entered they were met with a shocking sight: embedded in a cooling tower across the burnt processing unit, was a propeller half the size of a house.

Dec 17- A government panel has found that workers at the No. 3 reactor of the crippled Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant stopped operation of a high-pressure core cooling system without checking if a substitute pumping system...

Dec 17- Unregulated and unsupervised gas and oil storage tanks are deadly. Until improved safety measures are put in place, ...

Dec 15 - Orica chief executive Graeme Liebelt admits chemical leaks at its Newcastle site have seriously damaged the company's reputation.

Dec 15- Authorities are getting closer to finding out what caused a massive explosion at the Regina refinery back in October.

Dec 11- Gulf Drilling International and Qatar Shell recently hosted a “Dropped Objects Prevention Scheme” (DROPS) forum in Doha.

Dec 9 - From the time it capsized at a refinery dock in Texas City, the listing barge -- loaded with 235,000 gallons of sulfuric acid -- began seeping its toxic, corrosive load into the 30-foot-deep waterway...

Dec 7- Chevron Corp. (CVX), the second-largest U.S. crude producer after Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM), may be ordered to pay at least 150 million reais ($84 million) to Rio de Janeiro state for environmental damage from an offshore oil spill.

Dec 7- The state of Texas had resolved its enforcement case against BP Products North America, Inc.

Dec 7- A new health and safety systems review has been introduced by the British Safety Council.

Dec 1- A company criminally charged in the deaths of five employees at a power plant near Georgetown will likely plead guilty, attorneys revealed Wednesday.

Dec 1- DENVER — State health officials on Thursday ordered Suncor Energy to immediately begin testing the air inside the Denver Metro Wastewater Treatment Plant to ensure worker safety near where a gasoline-like substance from the company's refinery was detected seeping into Sand Creek earlier this week.

Nov 30- "This program will enable OSHA inspectors to cover chemical facilities nationwide to ensure that all required measures are taken to protect workers," Michaels said.

Nov 29- A contract worker has filed a lawsuit against BP West Coast Products in connection with injuries he says he suffered on the job more than two years ago.

Nov. 29--LIMA -- An insurance company has filed a lawsuit against Husky Energy for damage to two cars it said was caused by a release of a mist of oil into the air two years ago.

Nov 29, BEAUMONT, Tex. - Vast improvements in oil refinery safety will be the top bargaining goal of the Steelworkers (USW) when they open talks with the nation's oil companies on a new contract, the union announced.

Nov 25- The head of China's largest oil producer was one of 64 people punished for four major accidents in northeastern Dalian City, including oil pipeline explosions in July last year that led to the country's worst oil spill.

Nov 25, NEW ORLEANS — Air pollution from Louisiana's 17 oil refineries has been declining in the two decades since reporting requirements began, with last year's emissions down by two-thirds from 1988 levels, according to a report by an environmental group.

Nov 22- The ISA Security Compliance Institute (ISCI) announced that Honeywell is the first industry vendor to earn the ISASecure Embedded Device Security Assurance (EDSA) certification for an industrial control systems product.

Nov 21- A new report from local environmental group Louisiana Bucket Brigade has called out the state's oil refinery operators for poor accident records.

Nov 21-Brazil is expected to fine Chevron nearly $28 million US for an ongoing offshore oil spill, Rio de Janeiro state's environment secretary said Monday.

Nov 18-Honeywell introduced its new Safety Manager Field Device Unit (FDU), which allows process manufacturers to more easily implement small, standalone safety applications in their facilities.

Nov 16, HOUSTON - Louisiana's 17 crude oil refineries averaged nearly a malfunction a day in 2010, according to a study by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an environmental justice organization.

Nov 14- A poisonous cloud of chemicals from an accident at Union Carbide, which Dow bought in 2001, swept over Bhopal, India in 1984, killing about 4,000 people within a few hours. Lingering effects would eventually kill 15,000.

Nov 14- Each year, people are killed and maimed by explosions of finely powdered wood, metal or chemicals at factories around the country.

Nov 9, BEIJING- China's refinery throughput fell 0.9 percent from a year earlier to 8.74 million barrels per day (bpd), the second decline this year, as planned and unexpected shutdowns cut into operations.

Nov 9, ZAGREB - An oil refinery in the central Croatian town of Sisak will resume work this month after heavy damage by a fire in June, owner INA said on Wednesday.

Nov 9- Air-quality activist groups seized upon a recent U.S. Enivironmental Protection Agency report Wednesday as further evidence the Calumet Specialty Products refinery in Shreveport is damaging its neighborhoods.

Nov 4- A subsidiary of the Total oil giant went on trial again Thursday for possible negligence in a 2001 blast at the AZF chemical plant that left 31 people dead.

Nov 4, HOUSTON — BP has agreed to pay a record $50 million fine to Texas for unlawful releases of air pollution during and after the deadly explosion at its Texas City refinery in 2005.

Nov 4 - Exxon Mobil said it expects that its response to a July oil spill into the Yellowstone River in Montana will cost about $135 million, the company said on Friday.

Oct 28-WASHINGTON — Dozens of teenagers and children have been killed by explosions at oil and gas storage tanks over the past three decades, according to federal investigators who urged companies Thursday to better secure the sites.

Oct 26-Automation has brought tremendous benefits to the process industries, but it also introduces a significant problem: the paradox of automation and reliability.

Oct 26,Hattiesburg, Miss. — The U.S. Chemical Safety Board plans to release a report Thursday on a fatal petroleum facility accident in south Mississippi that left two teenagers dead.

Oct 26-Honeywell has announced the latest addition to its industrial wireless portfolio. The new OneWireless Video Solution allows plants to enhance their perimeter security and employee safety by deploying industrial video cameras over the OneWireless network.

Oct 14-A chemical manufacturer has appeared in court following a major incident at its factory in Cheshire which put workers' lives in danger.

Oct 12-Integrated control and safety systems (ICSS) will be designed and installed by Honeywell on both of RWE-Dea’s new North Sea platforms -- Clipper South and Breagh A. The projects are scheduled for completion at the end of 2011.

Oct 10-John Joosten, Product Manager at Honeywell Process Solutions, explained the need for such devices: “Several serious accidents within the last few years have increased the awareness of process safety and how it can better protect people, the environment and assets.”

Oct 7-DuPont Belle issued a statement Friday afternoon with more details about what caused three workers to become ill at the plant Sept. 26.

Oct 5-Neste Oil is planning to invest EUR 60m ($79m) to improve safety at its Porvoo and Naantali refineries in Finland.

Sep 29,Milan, Italy - Honeywell recently announced that it has signed a memorandum of understanding with Virthualis s.r.l., an engineering and research firm focused on improving decision making in the design and implementation of safety, to develop a 3-D simulation solution to improve operator training and plant safety.

Sep 28-One of the world’s most revered process safety experts Trevor Kletz has cited industry’s ‘macho culture’ as one of the main causes of recent accidents.

Sep 27- A national safety group has joined a federal agency in urging states and regulators to ban a pipe-cleaning practice that was blamed for the deadly 2010 power plant explosion in Connecticut.

Sep 24-GALVESTON - A worker at the Valero refinery in Texas City has filed a lawsuit, alleging he sustained "serious, disabling and permanent injuries" as a result of an explosion at the facility almost two years ago.

Sep 21-The company, which operates the Fawley refinery, earlier pleaded guilty to allowing vacuum gas oil to enter Southampton Water in June 2010.

Sep 20, CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The U.S. Chemical Safety Board on Tuesday approved the final version of its report on three January 2010 accidents that left one DuPont Co. Belle plant worker dead and created major questions about the company's safety practices.

Sep 15-Royal Dutch Shell may face prosecution over last month’s ten-day leak in the North Sea that was the UK’s worst oil spill in a decade, according to a report.

Sep 14-BOSTON -- The federal workplace safety agency has recommended $917,000 in fines for a Massachusetts adhesives manufacturer after an explosion there injured four workers.

Sep 13- Exxon Mobil Corp's refinery in Baton Rouge, Louisiana exposed workers to possible fires and explosions among other safety violations, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said on Tuesday.

Sep 13-The fireball from burst fuel pipeline in Nairobi’s Sinai slum could just have been a ghastly reminder of disasters Kenyans court daily and painful warning many are sitting on a time-bomb.

Aug 31-Honeywell announced the launch of its new Remote Collaboration, Optimization and Operations solution, which helps customers share their expertise across remote facilities, improving safety in hazardous environments, as well as optimizing production and improving recovery.

Aug 27-The environmental lobby group the ESG has described as “disturbing” scenes of the fire at the nearby CEPSA Oil Refinery.

Aug 22-Three employees of a Baytown oil refinery say they were burned in an explosion while they were on the job.

Aug 22-BILLINGS, Mont. (AP) — Cleaning up tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil that spilled from a pipeline and fouled a stretch of Montana's renowned Yellowstone River is expected to cost Exxon Mobil Corp. an estimated $42.6 million, according to documents obtained Monday by The Associated Press.

Aug 20-The ConocoPhillips refinery on the Nipomo Mesa has been recognized by a national industry association for stellar safety performance, making it one of only two in the United States to be so honored.

Aug 19-ConocoPhillips in a statement expressed sincere regret and accepted responsibility for the incidents in Bohai Bay.

Aug 11-A Gisborne District Councillor has renewed his call for the government to suspend the East Coast exploration permit for Brazilian energy company Petrobras following a lethal explosion at a Petrobras refinery.

Aug 4-Taiwan's privately owned refiner Formosa Petrochemical Corporation said Wednesday that it is incurring at estimated cost of about T$83 million ($2.87 million) each day the company's 540,000 b/d Mailiao refinery remains shut.

Aug 3-For the second time since the 2008 explosion that rocked the Big Spring Refinery, a Howard County jury found owner Alon USA guilty of negligence and awarded local residents damages but failed to find gross negligence.

Aug 2-Damaged LPG Tank No. 364 met all the earthquake-proof structural requirements. However, since at the time of the earthquake, Tank No. 364 was filled with water, instead of lighter LPG, for a regular inspection, the initial earthquake off the coast of the Tohoku region put such a heavy load on the braces that some of them collapsed .

Aug 1-Formosa Petrochemical Corp.'s chairman and president have stepped down after its Mailiao refinery in western Taiwan was hit by a second fire in a week over the weekend, which was also the seventh to hit the refinery in a year.

Jul 28-SALEM - In the aftermath of a deadly July 13 house explosion in Salem that officials believe was probably caused by a propane leak, area residents have become more concerned with propane safety, said Seth Pitts, Salem's town supervisor.

Jul 27 - Flint Hills Resources LLC companies have earned 78 local-, state-, and national-level awards for safety and environmental excellence for 2010 performance.

Jul 26-It was just over a year and a half ago there was a release of highly toxic phosgene gas hit a veteran operator at the DuPont plant in Belle, WV.

July 21, SAN ANTONIO- Tesoro Corporation today announced the release of the TOP (Triangle of Prevention) Investigation Team Report on the April 2, 2010, incident at the Anacortes Refinery in Washington State

July 19- Honeywell's Safety Manager solution has been awarded ISASecure Embedded Device Security Assurance (EDSA) certification by exida, the organisation that conducted the assessment.

Jul 15, MILAN - Italy's southern region of Puglia has told oil and gas group Eni to suspend operations at its Taranto refinery for 90 days to boost anti-fire safety systems, two sources familiar with the matter said on Friday.

Jul 14-WASHINGTON — A federal safety official says it will probably be months before investigators know what caused an ExxonMobil oil pipeline to rupture near Billings, Mont., spilling about 1,000 barrels of crude oil into the Yellowstone River.

Jul 13- Evergreen Oil has received a citation as a result of the March 29 fire that broke out in the Newark refinery. The company plans to appeal the fine.

Jul 13-Automation and control company Honeywell this week announced two strategic partnerships that combine manufacturing intelligence, business analytics, and operations management technologies to help companies in the oil and gas industry safely and efficiently run their operations.

Jul 08-A federal body that investigates chemical-plant accidents concluded in a report released Thursday that the January 2010 death of a DuPont Co. worker in West Virginia after exposure to phosgene had been caused by deficiencies in the Wilmington chemical giant's management systems.

Jul 07-An investigation by the Chemical Safety Board finds three DuPoint accidents could have been avoided if proper safeguards were put in place and warning signs were not ignored.

Jul 06, CHARLESTON -- The U.S. Chemical Safety Board will release a draft report on the causes of a 2010 phosgene leak at DuPont's Belle plant and offer safety recommendations to prevent similar accidents from occuring during a July 7 news conference in Charleston.

Jul 05-Japanese officials are still trying to understand all the factors that contributed to the meltdowns at the Fukushima Dai-ichi nuclear power plant.

Jul 05-INEOS Manufacturing Scotland Limited has been fined £100,000 following an uncontrolled release of crude oil at their Grangemouth refinery in May 2008.

Jul 04-An emergency resilience forum, is urging businesses to review their continuity plans in the wake of the Pembroke Chevron refinery blast in which four people died.

Jun 30, TOKYO - Japan's trade ministry on Thursday slapped Cosmo Oil Co with an administrative sanction after some LPG tanks at its Chiba refinery caught fire following the March 11 earthquake.

Jun 29-Shell Oil is trying to take the lead in onshore shale gas and oil development with the unveiling of a set of five “Global Onshore Tight/Shale Oil and Gas Operating Principles.”

Jun 29-Honeywell’s, UK Process Solutions and Building Solutions business units, have been recognised for their commitment to the health and safety of their global workforce by the British Safety Council, which has given the company two prestigious International Safety Awards.

Jun 28,HOUSTON- CITGO Petroleum Corporation's three refineries have been recognized by the National Petrochemical and Refiners Association (NPRA) with eight awards for their safe operations during 2010.

Jun 21- A three-day sentencing hearing at Crown Court heard a catalogue of failings that led to the explosion and pollution spilling into the sea.

Jun 21-UN Secretary-general Ban Ki- moon on Monday said that nuclear safety is not a fixed condition, but an evolving process, and that the lessons of Japan's Fukushima, the site of the explosion of the Dai-ichi nuclear plant, will help future nuclear safety examination, UN spokesman Martin Nesirky told reporters here.

Jun 20- Tokyo Electric Power Co. (TEPCO) has announced that an explosion at the No. 1 reactor of its crippled Fukushima No. 1 Nuclear Power Plant in March was possibly triggered by a failure to vent hydrogen gas out of the reactor building.

Jun 16- United Steelworkers Union (USW) says the June 14 injury at ExxonMobil's Baytown, Texas, refinery shows the company must do a better job at handling process safety.

Jun 3--Holly Corp. has decided not to release further information on what caused an April 22 fire at its west Tulsa refinery, a company spokesman said Thursday.

Jun 1 - Luanda – The world oil industry, including Angola’s, is exposed to damages like leaks, fires, deaths, material losses and pollution.

May 31, GEORGETOWN - It is a trial that will either expose criminal behavior, or prove what Xcel Energy has been saying for a number of years.

May 26-Total Petrochemicals encompasses the petrochemicals activities of the Total Group, with about 6,000 employees in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and Asia including the headquarters location in Brussels.

May 24- State-owned oil and gas firm PT Pertamina suffered $30 million in losses from a fire at its refineries in Cilacap, Central Java, early last month, a Pertamina official reported on Monday.

May 23- With the demand for energy rising all the time, the pressure to increase reservoir yields, and a workforce of a very diverse cultural mix and behaviours working with complex chemicals and machinery, the industry is challenged in managing very complex risks each day.

May 23- Anglo-Dutch supermajor Shell has been hit with a safety order from the Norwegian authorities following an investigation into a well incident on the Draugen platform in December last year.

May 20-A chemical company has been fined £150,000 after a tank collapsed, releasing a large amount of waste solvents and water at a chemical plant in Rye, East Sussex.

May 20, LONDON -- BP said Friday that one of its minority partners in the blown-out Gulf of Mexico well agreed to cover about $1.1 billion in costs. That’s raising hopes the oil giant can get money from other companies involved and reduce its bill for the disaster.

May 17- A “major forest fire” has forced Canadian Natural Resources to shut-in numerous assets in Alberta as raging infernos continue to threaten the region’s oil sands industry.

May 16- Norway’s Petroleum Safety Authority (PSA) slammed the oil major over “a number of non-conformities” relating to the incident on the Gullfaks A facility in February, and has ordered Statoil to explain plans to address safety issues next month.

May 13- SERIOUS safety concerns have emerged at Coryton oil refinery. The Gazette can reveal 20 incidents have happened at the site over the past four years – with at least two leaving staff with serious burns.

May 3, SAN ANTONIO - The United Steelworkers (USW) are presenting shareholder resolutions at Marathon Oil, Valero, Tesoro, and ConocoPhillips, calling on the companies to improve disclosures on safety at oil refineries.

May 3- BP has agreed to pay a $25 million civil penalty plus interest to settle a federal investigation into a 2006 pipeline oil spill on Alaska's North Slope, according to court papers filed on Tuesday.

Apr 23- Improper maintenance, insufficient staff training and badly designed safety systems may have contributed to last year's deadly explosion on Transocean Ltd.'s Deepwater Horizon drilling rig and subsequent oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico, according to a U.S. Coast Guard investigation.

Apr 20 - More than 3,200 oil and gas wells classified as active lie abandoned beneath the Gulf of Mexico, with no cement plugging to help prevent leaks that could threaten the same waters fouled by last year's BP spill, The Associated Press has learned.

Apr 7- The son of a 58-year-old Groves man who died in the March 31 flash fire and explosion at a Port Arthur chemical plant is suing KMTEX Properties Inc., claiming negligence.

March 17, 2011, Vancouver, Canada - The events in Japan have demonstrated that structures and facilities are potentially not as safe as originally perceived for the companies that commission them, and to members of the public. The 40-year-old nuclear power plant that has been leaking radiation, implemented an evacuation order of 20km, impacting 185,000 residents.

Mar 17- The oil and gas industry’s main trade group will launch a new offshore safety institute, a move that partially answers a recommendation made by a presidential commission that looked into last year’s deadly Deepwater Horizon accident.

Mar 16- The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited Calumet Lubricants Co. LP in Cotton Valley, La., a subsidiary of Indianapolis, Ind.-based Calumet Specialty Products Partners LP, with 45 alleged serious and 13 other-than-serious violations for exposing workers to possible fires, explosions and other hazards. Proposed penalties total $207,500.

Mar 14- Holly Corp.’s Tulsa refinery was hit with $62,500 in potential fines for 14 alleged “serious” violations of federal workplace regulations, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration announced Monday.

Mar 12- NEW ORLEANS -- The Obama administration has billed BP PLC. for $62 million spent responding to the Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Mar 11- The West Coast's largest oil refiners weren't affected by the tsunami resulting from a major earthquake in Japan, but they are closely watching the situation.

Mar 11- HOUSTON -(Dow Jones)- William Reilly, co-chair of the presidential panel tasked with investigating causes of the BP PLC (BP, BP.LN) oil spill, on Tuesday called the oil and gas industry's response to the disaster "remarkable and reassuring."

Mar 08 - Dudley described a number of lessons BP has learned since the catastrophic spill that killed 11 people, and said he hoped others in the industry would benefit from BP's mistakes.

Mar 03- Just since January 1, there have been more than a dozen incidents, resulting in at least 36 injuries—some serious and one fatality—in process plants as reported by the ASM Consortium.

Feb 25-Philadelphia-based Sunoco is being sued over a 2009 acid leak at a refinery in the city, the Philadelphia Inquirer is reporting.

Feb 24,CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Texas regulators have fined Citgo Refining and Chemicals Co. more than $303,000 over a 2009 refinery fire that left one worker hurt.

Feb 21- The Houston trial law firm Arnold & Itkin LLP is announcing a verdict of more than $2.4 million handed down late Thursday on behalf of a worker who suffered severe burns while working at ExxonMobil's refinery in Baytown, Texas.

Feb 19- The agencies that investigated the explosion and ensuing five-day fire that devastated the Buncefield Oil Storage Depot in December 2005 have issued a final report summarizing the causes.

Feb 10, MONT BELVIEU, Texas - HOUSTON (AP) — The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration is investigating a fire at a refinery in Mont Belvieu that killed one worker.

Jan 21- FIVE employees of ExxonMobil Asia Pacific and two other workers employed by the oil company's contractor were charged in court on Thursday with breaching workplace safety laws in relation to a fire at the oil refinery about four years ago.

Jan 14- In 2009 the USW started tracking refinery events using published sources and reports from members. That year the union recorded 45 serious process safety incidents, such as fires, explosions and releases. Five workers died in USW refineries.The situation worsened in 2010. At the time of the hearing, 49 serious incidents and 11 deaths had been recorded.

Jan 12, HOUSTON- The report by a presidential commission studying last year’s Macondo well disaster in the Gulf of Mexico calls for overhaul both of the oil and gas industry’s safety culture and of offshore regulation.

Jan 8- The presidential commission investigating the oil spill is set to issue its final policy recommendations Tuesday, and will almost certainly urge the offshore drilling industry to establish a safety institute that would share best practices and publicly shame bad performers.

Jan 5- OSHA has cited Pasadena Refining Services Inc. with 21 serious violations for exposing workers to multiple safety and health hazards at the company's facility in Pasadena. Proposed penalties total $115,650.

Jan 3- Cal/OSHA’s PSM unit has completed investigations at all of California’s refineries in the aftermath of the deadly explosion last year at the Tesoro Refinery in Washington state.

Dec 28- SCDF alleged previously that the oil giant had failed to let firemen put out a fire at one of its refineries. SCDF did not elaborate on its latest decision during a brief court hearing on Tuesday.

Dec 26- Petronas Chemicals Group Bhd., a unit of Malaysia’s state oil and gas company, fell to a two-week low in Kuala Lumpur trading after a fire halted operations at its plant.

Dec 22, PRAGUE -A newly revised European directive provides opportunities to strengthen chemical plant safety rules, Europe's largest federation of environmental organisations said on Wednesday.

Dec. 22, PITTSBURGH — Sunoco Inc. (SUN: 40.01 +0.02 +0.05%) has agreed to disclose important new information on its safety policies and track record at refineries and other production facilities, a move that the United Steelworkers (USW) commends.

Dec 20, WASHINGTON (Dow Jones) -- The U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board said on Wednesday that the lack of a focus on preventing major accidents is emerging as a key issue for the oil industry.

Dec 17- The U.S. government has finally entered the litigation fray over the catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill. Eight months after oil began spewing into the Gulf of Mexico, Attorney General Eric Holder announced Wednesday that the Department of Justice has filed civil claims against BP, Transocean, and seven other defendants over the disaster.

Dec 15 - “Honeywell has provided us with superior service and support over the years. It made sense to choose Honeywell to modernize our facility with the most updated automation technology including a state-of-the-art process simulator for operator training. It has helped us successfully revamp our refinery and improve the way we operate.” Dave Jackson, Total Lindsey Oil Refinery

Dec 3- Federal regulators cited two area companies for alleged health and safety violations, including a firm investigated as part of a new enforcement program targeting companies the government contends are indifferent to worker safety.

Dec 2- The staff of the National Oil Spill Commission recommended Thursday that the oil and natural gas industry form a separate, independent organization to dramatically raise safety standards and police the companies drilling on the US Outer Continental Shelf

Dec 2, HOUSTON – The U.S. Department of Labor’s Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued Huntsman Petrochemical LLC, headquartered in Houston, 12 serious citations for an inadequate process safety management program and deficient lockout/tagout procedures to prevent the accidental start-up of machinery. The violations were found at the company’s facility on Jefferson Chemical Road in Conroe, Texas. Proposed penalties total $75,600.

Nov 20- BP is facing new fines in connection with its criminal conviction for a huge oil spill on Alaska's North Slope in 2006. Federal probation officer Mary Frances Barnes argued in an Anchorage federal court yesterday that a second spill in Alaska in November last year constituted a violation of its probation.

Nov 17- Exxon Mobil Corp. has agreed to pay $25 million to resolve complaints over its handling of a huge underground oil spill underneath Greenpoint. The deal with Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and the environmental group Riverkeeper will resolve six years of litigation over oil spills from refineries that once lined the Brooklyn waterfront. Exxon Mobil is the heir to several defunct oil companies that once owned these refineries.

Nov 14- When we sat down in the office to review the plant and its history, you could see the results of a real safety culture. Until March 2010, they had gone nearly 3 years and 5.7 million hours without a lost time injury. (Until June 2006 they had a streak of 14 million hours without a lost-time-injury). Early in my career I worked in plants where we would have a lost time injury every month or so, so this is definitely a feat worth mentioning.

Nov 11- A Texas refinery worker who claims his employer is responsible for causing his lymphoma has filed a lawsuit against Chevron, Exxon and nearly 80 other companies in Jefferson County District Court.

Nov 11, NEW HAVEN — The low bidder for the huge highway interchange project in New Haven is at risk of not winning the contract because of alleged violations of safety regulations connected to the Kleen Energy Project natural gas plant explosion in Middletown.

Nov 11- Honeywell's range of virtualised offerings include Experion off-line testing and development solution that can be used for training, simulation and engineering. It also includes Experion's suite of Advanced Alarm Management solutions that improve process safety and operator efficiency, and eServer solutions that provide Web access to the system. All three products have been awarded VMware Ready status, which provides independent assurance that the company has tested its software with VMware vSphere.

nov 8 - SEATTLE — Tesoro Corp. says it is under investigation by the Environment Protection Agency's criminal division for the April 2 explosion and fire that killed seven people at the oil company's Anacortes, Wash., refinery.

Nov 4- Attendees visited the extensive demonstration and exhibit areas for a closer look at Honeywell's newest technologies as well as offerings from Matrikon around MES and cyber security. Topical issues debated included: the truth about industrial wireless technology; virtualization; process safety; industrial cyber-security and energy and emissions solutions.

Nov 4 - On average, OSHA has cited refineries for 17 violations per inspection and proposed $166,000 in penalties, Barab said in remarks at an international symposium on process safety management at the Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center at Texas A&M University.

Nov 1, Schwerzenbach, Switzerland -- Mettler Toledo is pleased to introduce the RC1e™ Process Safety Workstation. This semi-automated workstation, in combination with Mettler Toledo iC Safety™ software, can be used to investigate thermal and hazard risk of a wide range of chemical processes. Enhanced reaction control reduces the risk of large-scale failures that endanger lives, equipment and profits in an increasingly competitive worldwide market.

Oct 29- OSHA's scrutiny of the refinery industry and of chemical facilities covered by the Process Safety Management standard will increase, Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary of OSHA said in an Oct. 27 speech at the 2010 Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center International Symposium in College Station, Texas, which ended Thursday. OSHA already had announced its plan to continue the Chemical NEP until it can be expanded nationwide. Facilities subject to unprogrammed inspections are those that process large amounts of highly toxic flammable chemicals and gases.

Oct 28,Barcelona Spain - Honeywell recently announced that its FlexLine level gauges have been approved by the TÜV for use in Safety Integrity Level-2 (SIL-2) rated loops, allowing industrial facilities to use the award-winning devices in applications that require the stringent certification to prevent safety incidents. FlexLine is used in overfill protection loops to prevent spillage and mitigate the likelihood of a catastrophic accident, effectively stopping overfill before it happens.

Oct 25- In the United States, The Department of Labor has published the testimony given to a U.S. Senate Committee by Jordan Barab, deputy assistant secretary for the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) this summer. Barab summarized that in the past four months alone, at least 58 U.S. workers had died in explosions, fires and collapses at refineries, coal mines, an oil drilling rig and a power plant construction site. In the last five years, 20 serious incidents occurred in refineries. Each incident repeated a lesson that should already have been learned by the industry. Essential safety lessons are not being communicated.

Oct 22- Tesoro Corp. is appealing the $2.39 million fine issued by the state in the wake of a deadly explosion at its Anacortes oil refinery in April.The state Department of Labor & Industries says the company filed the appeal with the agency Friday. The state's fine against Tesoro is the largest in the agency's history. It came earlier this month, following a six-month investigation into state workplace safety and health regulations. It cited the company for 39 willful and five serious violations of state workplace safety and health regulations. Seven workers were killed.

Oct 20 - As part of the new emphasis on safety, BP will lead a group of oil companies operating in the UK in the design and procurement of a device that could cap a deep-water blowout in the North Sea similar to that which occurred in the Gulf of Mexico.The UK oil industry’s Oil Spill Prevention and Response Advisory Group has already agreed on a design for the device.

Oct 18- The leak is plugged. Six months after the Deepwater Horizon exploded and sank, unleashing the worst oil disaster in the history of the United States, BP is no longer monopolizing the top spot on the news agenda. What remains, however, is a reputation as black as the oil it pumps. Not for the first time, a petroleum giant has run into an oil-spill disaster. The last time it happened on anything approaching this scale, Exxon was able to extricate itself from the muck in Alaska's Prince William Sound and become an organization recognized for its safety programs and so obsessive about them that analysts tell stories about Exxon canteen workers charged with taking the temperature of the lettuce so "nobody gets hurt."

OAKLAND, Calif., Oct. 13 /PRNewswire-USNewswire/ -- Cal/OSHA's nationally recognized Process Safety Management (PSM) Unit has completed investigations at all of California's refineries in the aftermath of the deadly explosion in April at the Tesoro Refinery in Washington State. This extraordinary measure was taken to ensure safeguards are in place to prevent California from experiencing a similar disaster. Cal/OSHA's PSM Unit released its inspection findings on October 11 and concluded that the hydrogen corrosion that led to the Tesoro accident was due to circumstances that do not exist in this state.

Oct 11,Kuala Belait - TOTAL E&P Borneo BV (TEPB) & Total E&P Deep Offshore Borneo BV (TEPB-DO) have achieved another milestone since their establishment in Brunei Darussalam over 20 years ago with the launch of their new Flash Gas Compressor (FGC) - a carbon footprint-minimising feat -lauded by the Permanent Secretary of Energy at the Prime Minister's Office at a ceremony yesterday, held at TOTAL Onshore Processing Plant in Lumut.

Oct 10- BP is disbanding the external safety ombudsman it set up after the fatal explosion in 2005 at its Texas City refinery, despite the growing number of concerns raised by the oil company's employees. More than half the issues raised since the office was established in 2006 relate to BP's operations in Alaska.

Oct 8- At the National Oil Bargaining (NOB) conference in Dallas during September USW officials vowed to continue the refinery health and safety campaign and chastised the oil industry for operating equipment until it fails. “It’s all about money,” said USW Vice President Gary Beevers, who heads the union’s oil sector. “The refiners run the units longer, before scheduling maintenance, to sell as much product as possible.”

Oct 4, ANACORTES, Wash. - A deadly explosion in April at Tesoro Corp.'s oil refinery in Anacortes could have been prevented if the company had tested its equipment properly and followed other safety regulations, the Washington Department of Labor and Industries said Monday.

Oct. 4 - Tesoro Corp. was fined $2.39 million by Washington regulators, the largest penalty for workplace safety violations in the history of the state, for an April 2 explosion at its Anacortes refinery that killed seven people. Tesoro was cited for 39 “willful” violations and five “serious” violations of state workplace safety and health regulations, the Washington Department of Labor and Industries said in a press release today. The company could’ve prevented the accident, the agency said.

Sept 30, HOUSTON — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of Justice fined BP PLC $15 million on Thursday for Clean Air Act violations at its Texas City refinery, adding to the oil company's troubles as it struggles to clean up the damage caused by its massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Sept 23, Beaumont, Texas—CSB investigations of the 2005 Texas City explosion and other refinery disasters highlight additional safety concerns, including job consolidation, decreased staff, operator fatigue, inadequate training, and lack of effective, transparent process safety indicators. “The industry says it’s managing the risk but in most instances it’s based too narrowly on an individual plant’s history and that creates a false perspective of the risk involved,” said Kim Nibarger, a health and safety specialist with the USW’s health, safety and environment department.

Sept 21- Martin Operating Partnership LP has been issued citations by the U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration for one alleged willful and 21 alleged serious violations of federal health and safety regulations at its Smackover refinery.Penalties total $l65,600.

Sept 21- An LSU doctor says the chemicals released on Labor Day from the Chalmette Refining facility in Louisiana could pose a problem for people with pre-existing health problems. Dr. James Diaz, of the LSU Health Sciences Center’s School of Public Health, recently told WWLTV that that some of the chemicals released were the same toxins that have been found in defective Chinese drywall. The Chalmette Refining release blanketed parts of Chalmette, Arabi and New Orleans’ Lower Ninth Ward, including cars and homes, in a fine white powder. Refinery officials, as well as health officials in Louisiana, said repeatedly that the substance was spent catalyst powder, a byproduct of the refining process.

Sept 17- The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has launched an investigation into a 41-day benzene release at BP's Texas City refinery, the site of a massive explosion in 2005 that killed 15 workers.The EPA's investigation, announced late Thursday, is the latest blow to the oil giant, still struggling to deal with the outcome of the massive Gulf of Mexico oil spill.

Sept 17- The Navajo Refining Company has been fined $707,000 for after state investigators found the company knowingly failed to correct safety problems before a deadly March 2 storage tank explosion and fire at the company’s plant in Artesia, N.M. Two workers, Natividad Andajo and Victor Villa, were killed in the blast, their bodies were burned beyond recognition. Two other workers, both critically-injured, were airlifted to a hospital in Lubbock, Texas.

Six industrial safety experts from USA's Mary Kay O'Connor Process Safety Center have arrived on invitation in Taiwan to help probe the causes of two fires that broke out its naphtha cracker complex in July. In the course of its 5 day stay, the team will also offer suggestions to Formosa Plastics on how to improve the safety and efficiency of the petrochemical complex in Yunlin County's Mailiao.

Sept 8- BP’s Bly Report says there are several key areas where changes should be made in the future to avoid accidents like that on the Deepwater Horizon. In general they match the theme of the report that the cement job failed as a first line of defense and the blowout preventer as the last line.  Many are BP specific but are also aimed at “the contractor community that provides critical services and products to BP’s exploration and production operations.”

Aug 26- The U.S. Department of Labor's Occupational Safety and Health Administration has issued citations to Calumet Shreveport Lubricants & Waxes LLC in Shreveport, La., for 22 alleged serious violations and two alleged repeat violations of federal health and safety regulations. Penalties total $173,000. Dorinda Folse, OSHA's area director in Baton Rouge, La., said it's not the first time the company has been flagged for jeopardizing employee safety

Aug 25- Personal injury claim for worker after accident at work.A worker who was caught in the Buncefield oil plant explosion is seeking accident compensation. This comes after an investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) concluded last month and found five firms guilty of breaking health and safety regulations in relation to the accident.As a result, the companies – which included petrol firm Total – had to pay £9.5m in fines.

WASHINGTON, August 23, 2010—The American Petroleum Institute announced it would provide free online public access to a large group of key industry standards, including a broad range of safety standards.  This expands the number of API standards that will be available for free.  A smaller number are now available to the public for free on API’s website while others can be reviewed in person in government agency offices.

Aug18,BRIDGEPORT – A lawyer for a New Jersey man said a $6 million federal lawsuit has been filed against four companies as a result of injuries from the Kleen Energy Power Plant explosion last Super Bowl Sunday.

Aug 12- Beleaguered oil giant BP has agreed to pay a record 50.6 million US dollar (£32.5 million) fine for safety failings at its Texas City oil refinery after a 2005 explosion which killed 15 workers. The US Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) said it was still working to collect another 30 million US dollars (£19.3 million) for other penalties the company is contesting.

Aug 10, HONG KONG - While BP, responsible for the largest oil spill in history, has been pilloried all summer for its carelessness in the Gulf of Mexico, environmental disasters in China keep adding up - but no one will step up and take the blame. Indeed, the Chinese leadership may owe BP a letter of thanks: The five million barrels of oil that have despoiled the gulf since the company's Deepwater Horizon rig exploded in April served to divert world attention from the ongoing environmental troubles in China.

Aug 5, MIDDLETOWN — The federal Occupational Health and Safety Administration (OSHA) announced Thursday that it has fined three separate companies a total of $16 million dollars after an extensive investigation revealed more than 370 violations at the Kleen Energy Power Plant, which exploded in February.

Aug 5, ORONO - A successful plan to resume deepwater oil production in the Gulf of Mexico and prevent even greater dependence on imports must do more than make a case that the moratorium on drilling threatens to worsen our nation's energy security.

PHOENIX, August 02, 2010 – Process safety and environmental impact took center stage at the Abnormal Situation Management (ASM) Consortium’s 2010 Quarterly Review Meeting, held at the University of California at Los Angeles. Members of the consortium – which include a wide range of industrial manufacturers,vendors, and universities that collaborate to research best practices for managing abnormal situations in industrial facilities – gathered for the week-long event to discuss current research and development activities.

July 30- A fire at Formosa Petrochemical Corp.’s residual processing unit this month may have polluted fisheries near the plant, local government officials said.

June 23- ConocoPhillips may close a German refinery idled after a May 1 fire and will record $1.1 billion in second-quarter costs to reflect a drop in the value of the plant.

July 19, CHARLESTON, W.Va. -- The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration has cited DuPont with six serious violations and has proposed $43,000 in fines related to three chemical releases at the company's Belle plant in January, including one incident that resulted in the death of employee Danny Fish.

July 19 - In the wake of the Gulf of Mexico disaster, the oil industry as a whole could do a far better job of managing the challenges of energy production -- and reducing the risk of accidents -- by adopting some of the successful practices of the nuclear power industry.

July 6-Delivering the keynote address at Curvaceous Software's customer forum in the U.K. last month, former Abnormal Situation Management (ASM) Consortium program director Ian Nimmo showed how the same conclusions had been drawn from the investigations into the causes of the Texaco Milford Haven explosion in 1994 and the BP Texas City accident 11 years later. Nothing had changed – the same culture and the same control room and alarm management failings had created the same problems for operators and the alarm system and operator HMI had both been identified as significant contributing factors to both accidents

July 2- Honeywell has always been focused on operator effectiveness through its involvement with the Abnormal Situation Management (ASM) consortium and other activities.  Recently, Honeywell released the third volume in its series of research, this one on effective procedural practices.  Honeywell has built a Procedural Operations (ProcOps) application into Experion PKS.

June 21, SALT LAKE CITY — Utah regulators have fined an oil refinery more than $1 million for an explosion in November.Silver Eagle Refining Inc. says it will contest the 51 violations, all rated serious or willful.The Associated Press obtained a copy of the citations from the Utah Occupational Safety and Health Administration.

June 14- At least 58 workers in the energy sector have been killed on the job in the last four months. Among the dead are 11 oil workers on the Deepwater Horizon rig off the coast of Louisiana; 29 coal miners in the Upper Big Branch mine in West Virginia; 6 refinery workers at the Kleen Energy plant in Connecticut; and 7 refinery workers at the Tesoro Corp refinery in Washington State

PHOENIX, June 10, 2010 – The Abnormal Situation Management (ASM®) Consortium has released the third in its series of best-practice publications based on 15 years of research in the prevention of abnormal situations. Effective Procedural Practices is written for operations managers, operators, process engineers, training personnel, and safety and reliability engineers tasked with the development of safe operating procedures or procedure management practices and policies within their organization. It details best practices designed to produce consistently usable procedures and ensure that process operators can use procedures effectively in both normal and abnormal situations.

June 10,WASHINGTON (ICIS news)--The US refining and petrochemical industries have failed to incorporate lessons learned from fatal accidents, and tougher laws and stiffer penalties are needed to forestall further disasters, a top US safety official said on Thursday

June 7- Major plant incidents are usually the result of a confluence of factors, all converging at the same time to create an environment outside of the normal pre-operations testing environment. Most recent incidents in the process industries have some sort of procedural element associated with them. Either proper procedures were not followed, or no standard operating procedure was defined for the operator or maintenance person to follow. Many procedures in the process industries tend to be manual or guided procedures. While there is a place for these, the process industries can benefit greatly from a drive to automate many critical procedures, such as startup and shutdown.

May 21st- The United Steelworkers (USW) reports that there have been at least six refinery fires in the last two-and-a-half weeks. The most recent was at LyondellBasell in Houston on May 17 in a crude distillation unit, where residual oil and diesel fuel caught fire. No one was injured but residents were told to shut their windows and stay inside.

May, 15, 2010- No one can say that the four motor fuels refineries in Southeast Texas ignore the need for safety. The ExxonMobil refinery in Beaumont and the Motiva, Total and Valero facilities in Port Arthur have generally good records. As a Valero spokesman put it, "You're taking flammable liquids, heating it to high pressure, and making it even more flammable. We wouldn't be successful if safety weren't our top priority."

NEW YORK, May 13 - Honeywell International Inc (HON.N) said on Thursday that it was buying software maker Matrikon Inc (MTK.TO) for $142 million to help its customers improve their operations

May 10- The sinking of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig, which triggered the spill spewing oil into the Gulf of Mexico, caught the energy world by surprise. The operator, Transocean Ltd., is a giant in the brave new world of drilling for oil in deep waters far offshore. It had been honored by regulators for its safety record. The very day of the blast on the rig, executives were aboard celebrating its seven straight years free of serious accidents

May 7 Coal miners and oil drillers may not have been on T.S. Eliot's mind when he penned "The Wasteland," but April was surely the cruelest month for those who work in two of the most dangerous jobs in America. Last month saw the two biggest disasters in those industries in decades, with 29 miners dying in the Upper Big Branch mine explosion on April 5 and 11 workers killed in the oil rig explosion in the Gulf of Mexico on April 20

Apr 21- Just weeks before the five-year anniversary of a blast that killed 15 people at BP PLC's Texas City, Texas, refinery, the British oil giant was cited again by federal regulators who are stepping up efforts to enforce safety requirements at chemical processing facilities

April Vol.237 No4- The Pipeline Inspection, Protection, Enforcement and Safety Act of 2006 (PIPES) mandates that the Secretary of Transportation issue regulations on control room management (CRM) requiring a human factors plan that assures control systems are matched to human capabilities and limitations, including fatigue management.

Apr 20-New research funded by the Center for Operator Performance shows that process operators may perform better at high alarm rates when alarms are grouped by priority, rather than chronologically

Apr17-The United Steelworkers union on Friday called on ExxonMobil to implement process safety procedures as outlined in a 2007 union report.

PITTSBURGH, April 14  — The United Steelworkers (USW) disputes the oil industry's claim that oil refineries are doing a lot to address safety issues.

Mar 8 -  Four workers were reportedly hospitalised after a toxic gas leak atthe Millennium Inorganic Chemicals Ltd site near Grimsby shortly after midnight on 5 March.

Jan 15 - Honeywell recently announced it has acquired rights to technology developed by Shell Global Solutions (Shell) for gathering field data and helping industrial plants to safely increase production while reducing maintenance and operating costs.

Jan 5 - Sunoco Refining and Marketing will pay $173,310 in civil penalties for air quality violations at its 178,000-barrel-per-day refinery in Marcus Hook, Pennsylvania, that occurred in 2008, state authorities said on Tuesday.

Jan 4 - LONDON Royal Dutch Shell PLC (RDSB.LN) and two of its contractors have been fined a total of GBP283,332 by the U.K. Health and Safety Executive over an accident at the Stanlow refinery in Cheshire in 2007 that left a ...

Dec 29 - SUGAR LAND, Texas—Imperial Sugar Co. says it has settled a property insurance claim in the February 2008 explosion at its Port Wentworth, Ga., refinery for a total of $345 million.

Dec 11 - London - On the fourth anniversary of the Buncefield explosion, the Process Safety Leadership Group (PSLG) has published its final report with recommendations specifying minimum safety and environmental protection standards for all sites storing large volumes of gasoline.

Dec 10 — Shortages of staff and money keep a federal group from investigating blasts like the one that shook the Seabrook area.

On Dec. 9, the U.S. Chemical Safety Board (CSB) issued urgent safety recommendations calling on CITGO Petroleum Corp. to conduct third-party safety audits and improve its emergency water mitigation system in the event of another release of potentially deadly hydrogen fluoride (HF) vapor, as occurred last July at the company’s Corpus Christi, Texas, refinery.

Dec 3 The new control room management rule requires pipeline operators to establish human factors management plans and to account for National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommendations on supervisory control and data acquisition (SCADA) system displays, alarm systems and controller training.

Nov 17 NEW YORK (Dow Jones)--U.S. workplace-safety regulators say they are turning up more violations than they expected in a sweeping, nationwide program of inspections of U.S. oil refineries.

Nov 9 - The Center for Chemical Process Safety (CCPS), a technology alliance of the American Institute of Chemical Engineers, has announced a partnership with Phillip Townsend and Associates (PTAI) to establish a program of formal benchmarking in process safety in the chemical, energy, and pharmaceutical industries.

Oct 30 - The Occupational Safety and Health Administration on Friday imposed a record $87 million fine against oil giant BP PLC for failing to correct safety hazards after a 2005 explosion killed 15 workers at its Texas City refinery.

Ocy 14 - The ISA Standard and the ASM Consortium Guidelines Both Offer Important Information About Alarm Management. Although Their Approaches Differ, They Complement One Another

Oct 13 - Written by a committee of safety professionals, this book creates a foundation document for the development and application of risk tolerance criteria - Helps safety managers evaluate the frequency, severity and consequence of human injury.

The author presents a case for integrating safety systems, security systems, human factors, alarm management, and operator training in a unitized system to deal with the problem of complex systems.

MOSCOW, Oct. 3, 2009 - The disaster that killed 75 people at Russia's largest hydropower plant in August was caused by technical shortcomings and human errors, the state industrial safety watchdog Rostekhnadzor said on Saturday.

Abnormal Situation Management Consortium releases publication based on 15 years of research that showcases best practices for alarm management as developed by process manufacturers.

Oct 1, 2009 - The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration cited Alon USA Energy Inc's (ALJ.N) Big Spring, Texas, refinery for alleged safety violations following a lengthy inspection, the agency said on Thursday.

Seo 24 ATLANTA — A huge fire last year at a sugar refinery near Savannah, Ga., that killed 14 workers and injured 36 more was “entirely preventable,” a federal official said Thursday as the results of an investigation into the fire’s causes were released.

Sep 22 - British oil giant BP Plc has failed to carry out promised safety improvements after an explosion that killed 15 workers at its refinery in Texas in 2005, the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration said in letter sent to the company last month.

Sep 16 While occupational safety incidents are at their lowest levels in recorded history , process safety incidents show no improvement –

The CSB Board failed miserably to use its authority to repeat, reiterate and urge OSHA to amend its process safety management (PSM) so that it explicitly addresses reactive chemicals. 

Sep 9 - Middle East industrial gas detection sales are expected to exceed US$20 million each year, so Petrochemicals Middle East investigates how vendors aim to win your plant manager’s approval.

SEP 7 - TEXAS CITY — Looking out the window from Keith Casey’s office, the physical changes to the BP refinery in Texas City since a cascade of explosions killed 15 people four years ago are evident.

Sep 2 - One year after an explosion that led to two fatalities, Bayer CropScience is to eliminate 80 per cent of its methyl isocyanate (MIC) stockpile at its Institute, West Virginia site.

DUBAI, UAE, August 25 /PRNewswire/ -- International Quality and Productivity Center (IQPC), the global provider of tailored, industry-driven conferences, announced today the dates for Process Safety in Oil, Gas & Petrochemicals 2009.

PASCAGOULA, Miss.  Aug 20 — First Chemical Corp. will pay the federal government $731,000 in civil penalties for an October 2002 explosion at the company's Pascagoula plant.

Aug 6 - Two new books provide important insights and guidance about plant safety.

Aug 5 - The union that represents the bulk of the nation’s oil refinery workers walked out of talks with oil industry representatives on worker safety issues stemming from federal findings in the 2005 explosion at the BP Texas City refinery that killed 15 people.

Aog 5 - GALVESTON - BP America (fka British Petroleum) and its directors cost shareholders millions of dollars by their flagrant violations of safety and environmental laws that led to the fatal explosion and fire at its Texas City refinery, shareholders say in a derivative complaint.

July 31 “In business and government everyone exists in silos," says Michael Taubitz. “Production, Safety, Administration, Quality, and all the others. They have their own industry groups, their own issues, etc. But when you are designing you have to do that as a well integrated whole. You have to bust the damned silos.”

July 09 From products to safety, managing change in process or plant brings people and technology together for safe and efficient plant operation

HCS, a long-time ASM Consortium member, is offering a one-day developer's workshop for designing effective operator displays.  More details about this seminar, including upcoming dates and venues, can be found at their web site.

June 29 - OSHA has cited Delek Refining Ltd., in Tyler, Texas, with one alleged willful and 29 alleged serious violations after a fire and explosion claimed the lives of two workers and injured three others. Proposed penalties total $217,350.

June 26 - A rare rulemaking by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board has begun, with CSB asking for comments by Aug. 4 on how it should write a regulation requiring accidental chemical releases to be reported to the CSB or to the National Response Center.

    HOUSTON, June 19 (Xinhua) -- Representatives of two major U.S. refineries, Valero and Marathon, were summoned to a meeting with officials of Texas City, in the U.S. state of Texas, after they failed to report power outages that set off a series of extended flare burns earlier this week, local media reported Friday.

Mar 31 - HCS, a long time ASM Consortium member,  announced today that they will be delivering three day-long workshops on designing effective operator displays.  Click on the ASM Events Calender under News or go to the HCS website for more information.

Mar 31- On June,  Honeywell Process Solutions, is offering two half day training workshops in conjunction with Honeywell's User Group, in Phoenix, AZ.  The seminar from Honeywell provides guidance on how to approach, plan and implement based on HMIWeb Solution pack and the ASM guidelines.

Mar 30 - Bayer CropScience is trying to prevent the federal government from disclosing preliminary findings on what caused an explosion in August at the company's chemical plant in Institute, W.Va., citing a terrorism-related federal law.

SAN ANTONIO, March 25 - A process safety program has improved the reliability of Chevron Corp's 2.2-million barrel per day (bpd) refining system and yielded a gain in throughput equivalent to a new refinery, Jeet Bindra, Chevron's president of global manufacturing said on Wednesday.

Mar 20 - LONDON: A court ruled Friday that subsidiaries of French energy company Total SA are liable for negligence that led to a huge explosion and fire at an English fuel depot in 2005 — the biggest blast in Europe since World War II.

Mar 6 - The association’s key criticism of the Buncefield and Texas City explosions brings about the need for the industry to take a leadership position on process safety.

Mar 3 - The federal Chemical Safety Board has been in the news for calling off a public meeting under pressure from attorneys for Bayer CropScience.

Feb 26 - Ujwal Ritwik- When companies cut on budget and resources safety, environment and training are the most affected disciplines.

Feb 22 - Nationally, oil and gas industry fatalities accounted for nearly two-thirds (120) of the 181 deaths in 2007 in the private mining sector, according to preliminary data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

More than 80 percent of change initiatives fail, according to a Harvard study, because of insufficient involvement of those affected by the change, and their leadership.

The report describes the incident and the nature of the site and surrounding communities and the initial responses by EA and HSE.

Feb 9 - Health and safety experts are called to investigate a serious incident in the North Sea oil and gas sector almost every day, new figures revealed.

Feb 9 WHITING | Union workers at BP's Whiting refinery are scheduled to vote Tuesday and Wednesday on the three-year labor agreements recently negotiated between the union and the company.

Feb 3 - LONDON - The oil industry is taking a familiar response to the collapse in crude prices, cutting costs and jobs, but this could lead to an equally familiar outcome of poor safety, and staff shortages when crude rebounds..

LONDON—A risk management forum aimed at improving safety and reducing losses in the energy industry has been created by a group of United Kingdom energy sector associations. The London-based Process Safety Forum has been established as a platform whereby best practices, safety strategies, information gleaned from accidents and other information can be shared among energy industry participants.

Nov 20 - Understanding the root causes of abnormal situations in process industries is fundamental to eliminating and mitigating abnormal situations. This presentation will discuss research findings of the ASM Consortium on common problems and failure modes with an emphasis on the analysis of human factors in relation to incidents. We will share the top three causes identified in our research and discuss recommendations for companies to reduce abnormal situations.

Nov 11 - Changes definitely are afoot with operator interfaces. Their definition broadens. And certainly, human factors’ role increases in interface improvement

Nov 24 - The Dow Chemical Company’s Director of Process Safety, Tim Overton, was recently recognized with the 2008 Mary Kay O’Connor (MKOC) Process Safety Center Merit Award for his commitment to sustainable improved process safety performance across the industry. The Merit Award is one of the few international awards given in this field.