The Baker Panel Report - ABSA

Reliance on injury ratesBP’s executive management tracked the trends in BP’s personal safety metrics, and they understood that BP’s performance in this regard wasboth better than industry averages and consistently improving. Based upon these trends, BP’s executive management believed that the focuson metrics such as OSHA recordables and the implementation of the Group-wide driving standard were largely successful. With respect topersonal safety, that focus evidently was effective. BP’s executive management, however, mistakenly believed that injury rates, such as daysaway from work case frequency and recordable injury frequency, were indicators of acceptable process safety performance. While executivemanagement understood that the outputs BP tracked to monitor safety were the same as those that the industry generally monitored, it was notuntil after the Texas City accident that management understood that those metrics do not correlate with the state of process safety. Prior to theTexas City accident, BP’s executive management authorized a number of initiatives designed to improve process safety, including the 2001process safety/integrity management standard, the lengthy development of engineering technical practices, the hiring of a Group EngineeringDirector, and the development of the Group integrity management standard. BP’s executive management apparently believed that thesemeasures were sufficient. BP’s reliance on improving injury rates as an indication of acceptable process safety performance, coupled with anapparent inadequate understanding of process safety, created a false sense of confidence within BP’s executive management that BP wasproperly addressing process safety risks at its U.S. refineries.Finding:BP mistakenly used improving personal safety performance (i.e., personal injury rates) as an indication ofacceptable process safety performance at its five U.S. refineries; BP’s reliance on this data and inadequateprocess safety understanding created a false sense of confidence that it was properly addressing processsafety risks at those refineries.Corporate Safety Culture C 72