CSB Issues Recommendations to Petrochemical Industry - Calls for Safer Worker Trailer Placement

November 14, 2005

The board directed the urgent recommendations to the American Petroleum Institute (API) and the National Petrochemical & Refiners Association (NPRA).

The first recommendation calls on API to develop new industry guidance "to ensure the safe placement of occupied trailers and similar temporary structures away from hazardous areas of process plants."

The board noted that the existing safety guidance, API Recommended Practice 752, does not prohibit the placement of trailers close to hazardous process units.

The recommended practice, "Management of Hazards Associated with Location of Process Plant Buildings," is widely used by U.S. oil and chemical companies to assess siting hazards, a regulatory requirement under OSHA's Process Safety Management standard.

A separate urgent recommendation, directed jointly to API and NPRA, called on the organizations to immediately contact their members urging "prompt action to ensure the safe placement of occupied trailers away from hazardous areas of process plants," before the new API safety guidance is completed.

In the incident at BP Texas City, 15 workers died in and around trailers that were too close to hazardous process equipment that released flammable hydrocarbons during startup.

"Under board procedures, the requested measures should be completed within 12 months, at which time the board will consider closing the recommendation based on 'acceptable' or 'unacceptable' actions by the recipients," said CSB Chairman Carolyn W. Merritt.

The full text of the board's resolution issuing the new recommendations was posted on the CSB's web site.

Source: U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB).