Refined affair
Over the past four years, BP’s US Refining business has found itself on a long journey to ensure that a tragic incident such as the one at Texas City in 2005 would not happen again
BP
BP
As the leadership team explains, by collectively following one ‘recipe’ for continuous improvement, the business is now positioning itself for a future as both the safest and most competitive in the industry.
After the tragic incident at the Texas City refinery on 23rd March 2005 – the most brutal wake-up call a company could ever receive – the BP Group embarked on a long journey of recovery, with employees at its refineries in the US working harder than ever to set the basis for a safe and sustainable future. The refineries began with a set of urgent corrective actions known as the ‘six-point plan’ and have continued with the implementation of BP’s rigorous new Operating Management System (OMS), which has been designed to improve safety and operational efficiency, both systematically and culturally.
As OMS and a refocused operating culture begin to take hold, a future in which BP’s US refineries are both the safest and most competitive in the industry begins to look possible.
“Over the past couple of years, we have been establishing the foundations for our future,” says Steve Cornell, vice president, US Refining. “We now have the main work processes in place and have corrected the critical hardware needs, identified after Texas City.”
US Refining leadership has articulated four ‘foundations’ for the business, and is working to achieve them: a belief that zero injuries is a reasonable expectation for all manufacturing sites; intolerance of non-compliance; a rigour in the field that establishes a disciplined approach to operations, with process safety at its heart; and a culture of federal behaviour.
Although individual action and accountability are at the core of our operations model, federal behaviour is also expected. This behaviour is an important element in establishing a unified culture focused on the continuous improvement of the business,” says Cornell.
Supported by this federal approach, all the refineries are ultimately on the same journey, although some have started from different positions. Ron Unnerstall, business unit leader (BUL) at the BP-Husky Toledo refinery, which provides a fifth of northwest Ohio’s energy needs, says success in operations is all about a ‘recipe’, a formula not unlike that for a hamburger made by a certain ubiquitous fast food chain.
“The way organisations continuously improve is through systems and processes by which everyone does the same things the same way, every time,” says Unnerstall. “Come up with the right recipe, write it down, agree to follow it, and use it to teach new people, and over time, the organisation can get better and better.”
Source: BP