Management failures blamed for Buncefield

18 February 2011

Safety management failings have finally been blamed as the root cause of the Buncefield Oil Storage Depot disaster.

The full report was released yesterday (Thursday 17 February), exploring the causes of the explosion and five-day fire at the base near Hemel Hempstead, in December 2005. In reaction to the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and Environment Agency (EA) investigation, IOSH’s Hazardous Industries Group chair Rob Fair, has said that since Buncefield, he believes that there has been a change in the way health and safety is run across these sectors.

He said: “Buncefield was a terrible wake up call that may have been needed for some companies and organisations. At the very least it prompted many to reflect upon and review their existing processes and arrangements, so they could ensure that they were not caught out with a similar catastrophe.

“This report sums up some of the main issues from Buncefield, spelling out some of the key safety messages we must continue to take forward for wider use in the hazardous industries. But it shouldn’t take a Buncefield type event to force us to take stock of what we are doing and where we can learn from others.”

To safeguard against major incidents like Buncefield, the Hazardous industries Group will soon launch its Peer Review Process. It is designed to identify and share good practice, and help people from across different industry sectors to learn from events and experiences.

Mr Fair added: “We are confident that across the different sectors we already have the knowledge of how to manage and further control our risks. But this project will hopefully make sure we learn quickly and efficiently from the many different sectors of industry, so that we can put key lessons into practise, regardless of the scale of our organisations.”

In July 2010, five companies were fined a total of £9.5million for their part in the catastrophe. The investigation suggests there existed a culture where keeping operations going was more important that safe processes. And some of the causes of the explosion and fire in yesterday’s report weren’t raised during the criminal prosecution and appeals processes.

These included deficient systems that existed for managing industrial tank filling, the unsustainable pressure to manage the consistent increase in fuel which had to be stored at Buncefield, and inadequate arrangements for containment of fuel and fire-water to protect the environment.

The 36-page report advises of several safety management principles to implement:

• There should be a clear understanding of major accident risks and the safety critical equipment and systems designed to control them.
• There should be systems and a culture in place to detect signals of failure in safety critical equipment, and to respond to them quickly and effectively.
• Time and resources for process safety should be made available.
• Once all the above are in place, there should be effective auditing systems in place which test the quality of management systems and ensure that these systems are actually being used on the ground.
• At the core of managing a major hazard business should be clear and positive process safety leadership with board-level involvement and competence to ensure that major hazard risks are being properly managed.