The Baker Panel Report - ABSA

Refinery plant manager turnoverUnder BP’s Management Framework, refinery plant managers, like other BP business unit leaders, have a great deal of latitude to run thebusiness. The refinery plant manager has direct responsibility for virtually all aspects of the refinery’s performance, including process safetyperformance. With respect to process safety at the refinery, the Panel believes that refinery plant managers play a vital role. The refinery plantmanager is the top leader at the site, and the message the refinery plant manager communicates about process safety throughout the refineryis critical to process safety performance. The refinery plant manager has substantial leeway to manage the refinery’s operations, includingwhere process safety objectives compete with other objectives such as meeting budget targets, production targets, and schedules. Further, inorder to be effective, the refinery plant manager must have a positive relationship with refinery stakeholders, and it necessarily takes some timefor a new plant manager and the workforce to get to know one another and to gain trust.Stability in the refinery plant manager position can be important to process safety performance in a number of ways. If an effective processsafety management system and a strong process safety culture both exist at a site, having some amount of turnover at the refinery plantmanager position conceivably might not materially affect process safety performance. If either a strong management system or a strong safetyculture is not present, however, the stability of the refinery plant manager appears to be much more important, if not critical, to promoting ahigh level of process safety performance. In such an environment where strong management systems or culture are lacking, establishing andmaintaining controls around process risks may depend disproportionately on the capabilities, efforts, and even personalities of individuals. Ifone or both of effective management systems or strong safety culture do not exist, frequent turnover of the local refinery plant manager maydetract from maintaining shared values on process safety among the refinery workforce. Each new refinery plant manager may be viewed ashaving different priorities, and leadership continuity around process safety can be jeopardized.BP’s Texas City, Toledo, and Whiting refineries have experienced relatively frequent turnover at the plant manager position. In the last six years,Toledo has had five plant managers, Whiting has had four, and Texas City has had eight. Yet another refinery plant manager is scheduled tostart at Texas City in January 2007.The Panel believes that the high turnover at the plant manager position has contributed to the process safety culture weaknesses at thoserefineries. Numerous interviewees at Toledo, both hourly workers and managers, commented that the frequent plant manager turnover fosteredthe belief at the refinery that Toledo was merely a training ground that did not fit into BP’s long-term plans, and this damaged the generalmorale of the Toledo workforce. Many interviewees at Toledo also noted that each of the refinery plant managers at that site appears to have hada different focus and set of priorities, and as a result Toledo has had no clear and consistent message about process safety. Some intervieweesat Whiting expressed similar concerns. The turnover at Texas City appears to have had more to do with BP’s struggles with how to manage therefinery and several chemical operations in the Texas City area than it did with the performance of the refinery plant managers themselves.Nonetheless, Texas City interviewees also noted the differing personalities and priorities of the plant managers.BP does not have a list of specific qualifications it expects a new refinery plant manager to possess. BP has, however, recently adopted a formalmanagement of change process for considering a change in certain positions, including refinery plant managers. Previously, BP used a formalmanagement of change analysis primarily for proposed engineering, technical, and procedural changes, and not for personnel changes.Corporate Safety Culture C 73