The Baker Panel Report - ABSA

Despite data demonstrating a number of positive aspects of Cherry Point’s safety culture, the Panel’s review revealed at least two elements thatmerit attention. First, both interviews and survey data suggest that the workforce is expected to work significant hours. Experienced operatorsnoted in their interviews that expectations about hours of work were particularly high during turnarounds. Four survey items addressedperceived pressure to work considerable overtime. Table 20 below contains those items and percentages of Cherry Point contractors andemployees who responded negatively to the items.Table 20‘‘Workers at this refinery feelpressured to work considerableovertime from:[A]. Co-workers[B]. Supervisors[C]. Refinery Management[D]. Their own sense of loyaltyto their operating units.”‡ Fewer than 25 respondents were in this group.Percentages of Agree/Tend toAgree ResponsesCherry Point Group A B C DMaintenance/Craft Technicians 49 52 46 76Maintenance/Turnaround Planners ‡ 45 30 30 80Contractors 43 53 46 58Operations Management 37 37 33 76Full-Time HSSE Employees 36 40 20 65Engineering Professionals 33 25 19 72Operators 31 28 27 70Maintenance Management ‡ 27 25 25 81The high negative response rates for these specific survey items are even more significant when compared to positive response rates for theremainder of the survey items. For three of the four survey items quoted above, employees in the nine process safety functional groups, as awhole, provided positive response rates that were lower at Cherry Point than they were on average across the five U.S. refineries. That responsespread was not common; it did not occur for any of the remaining 62 survey items. Cherry Point management acknowledges the overtime issueas significant and recognizes that it could impact safety performance at the site.Second, Cherry Point also appears to have an overconfidence that may reduce its sense of vulnerability to process safety risks. Many of theindividuals interviewed at Cherry Point indicated they believed that the refinery’s safety culture was premised upon site management’sknowledge of the refinery, its sense of personal responsibility for the refinery’s safety performance, and its belief that it had the authority tomanage as it sees fit. This sense that “Cherry Point knows what’s best for Cherry Point” appears to make the refinery less receptive—and evenon occasion hostile—to corporate initiatives, programs, and oversight, including those intended to identify and reduce process safety risks. Notsurprisingly, the Cherry Point workforce did not attribute its positive safety culture to BP Group initiatives, programs, or policies; on the contrary,widespread concern exists at Cherry Point that such company-wide directives will impair process safety and damage the refinery’s safetyculture.Carson process safety culture. Like Cherry Point, Carson is an ARCO-heritage refinery. Many interviewees reported that throughout most ofthe 1990s, while still under ARCO ownership, Carson had a poor safety culture and a deteriorating safety record. Following three significantprocess safety incidents in 1998, Mike Hoffman, the Carson refinery plant manager at the time, made it clear that no process safety incidentwould be tolerated, reinforced the belief that anyone could and should report a process safety concern without fear of reprisal, and secured fromARCO sufficient funding to address process safety issues. Many Carson interviewees credited Hoffman’s actions with turning around theCorporate Safety Culture C 100