BP fined £32.5m over oil refinery blast

Beleaguered oil giant BP agreed to pay a record £32.5 million fine for safety failings at its Texas City oil refinery after a 2005 explosion which killed 15 workers.

The fine is the largest penalty issued in the US Occupational Safety & Health Administration's (Osha) history.

US Secretary of Labour Hilda L. Solis said the size of the penalty reflected BP's "disregard for workplace safety".

She said: "This agreement achieves our goal of protecting workers at the refinery and ensuring that critical safety upgrades are made as quickly as possible.

"The size of the penalty rightly reflects BP's disregard for workplace safety and shows that we will enforce the law so workers can return home safe at the end of their day."

BP denied it ignored safety concerns, insisting it significantly improved the safety of its operations at Texas City over the last five years.

In addition to paying the fine, BP Products North America Inc agreed to take immediate steps to protect those now working at the refinery, allocating a minimum of 500 million US dollars (£321 million) to this end.

In September 2005, Osha cited BP for a then record 21 million US dollars (£13.5 million) as a result of the fatal explosion.

The parties then entered into an agreement that required the company to correct deficiencies.

In 2009 Osha said it found that although the company made many changes related to safety, it failed to fulfil several important terms of the agreement and cited BP for "failure to abate" violations with penalties totalling the 50.6 million US dollars that BP has now agreed to pay.

The company said yesterday it reached a settlement to resolve 270 of 709 citations that Osha issued to it.

BP contested the citations but both parties agreed to settle the matter.

A spokesman said: "BP is hopeful that this agreement will provide a platform to resolve the remaining citations."

Iain Conn, BP's global head of refining and marketing, said: "BP and Osha are jointly committed to workplace safety and a strong relationship with Osha is of great importance to BP.

"We respect Osha's concerns and have addressed them in this agreement."

About 170 people were injured in the explosion in Texas City, south of Houston, on March 23 2005.