Lessons to be learned

摘要

It is not as though the process and storage industries are unaware of the issue of safety: Most plants pride themselves on their zero-accident record and count each and every minor incident. There is even a growing awareness of the need to look at leading indicators rather than focus on personal safety issues, as it is these that can alert the operator to possible major safety failings. The explosion at the Buncefield oil depot in the UK in December 2005 brought the issue of process safety management (PSM) to the attention of the storage terminal sector. In successive reports on the incident - in which the industry and labour organisations played a leading role alongside government bodies - process safety management failings were repeatedly highlighted, just as they were in the Baker Report into the Texas City refinery explosion just a few months earlier.