Watching Government: Broader questions at Richmond

Broader questions emerged as the US Chemical Safety Board released its draft report on its investigation of an Aug. 6, 2012, incident at Chevron USA Inc.'s Richmond, Calif., refinery.

"We have come to the conclusion that the whole regulatory system needs to be revamped," Don Holmstrom, director of CSB's Western Regional Investigation office in Denver, said at a briefing on Aug. 15. "It needs more tools to do the job."

Chevron and CSB's separate investigations found that sulfidation corrosion caused pipe in the refinery's No. 4 crude unit to fail, releasing a vapor cloud that subsequently ignited.

No one was injured, but about 15,000 people from the surrounding area sought medical attention, CSB said. It adopted its initial findings as an interim report following an Apr. 19 public meeting at the Richmond Civic Center.

CSB recommended Chevron perform damage mechanism reviews, and use process safety lagging and leading indicators to find out how well those reviews are performing. It also said Chevron didn't implement proven safer corrosion prevention technology, but simply inspected pipes for signs of problems and responded to incidents instead, which is legal under current federal regulations.

"A lot of programs address what we're talking about here," Dan Tillema, who led CSB's investigation, told OGJ by telephone hours before the Richmond public meeting. "We're recommending damage hazard reviews be added to their program. We found that what they were doing in Richmond didn't adequately address corrosion in the pipe."

In a written statement it submitted at the Apr. 19 hearing (because ongoing proceedings prevent it from participating directly), Chevron USA said it would continue to cooperate with investigators, but respectfully disagreed with some of CSB's initial conclusions—especially the board's decision to release an animated video portraying what may have happened on Aug. 6.

'Numerous inaccuracies'

"We informed CSB that the animation contains numerous, material factual inaccuracies, the impact of which is to oversimplify, and in some instances trivialize, decisions that were made on that day," Chevron said. "The animation also focuses on the actions of specific individuals, which we believe has the effect, surely not intended, of demeaning the challenges faced by the responding personnel."

The company said it is changing the plant's process hazards analysis program as CSB recommended, and strengthening the refinery's piping and equipment reliability program "to further ensure coverage of potential damage mechanisms applicable to those systems."

But CSB's interim report said that broader regulatory oversight, emergency planning and reporting, emergency response, and safety culture questions also need to be addressed. More than CSB, Chevron, and California state and local regulators will need to get involved, Holmstrom observed.