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The Buncefield disaster
The Buncefield disaster challenged the worldwide perception of how a major incident can happen at any site, even those considered not to be a high risk. The Task Group which was subsequently set up to strengthen safeguards. With the group issuing its initial findings The BAPCO?Journal provides an update...
Some twelve months ago, a number of explosions occurred at Buncefield Oil Storage Depot, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. At least one of the initial explosions was of massive proportions resulting in a major fire, which engulfed a high proportion of the site. Over 40 people were injured; fortunately there were no fatalities. Significant damage occurred to both commercial and residential properties in the vicinity and a large area around the site was evacuated on emergency service advice. The fire burned for several days, destroying most of the site and emitting large clouds of black smoke into the atmosphere.
Prior to the Buncefield incident, petroleum storage sites were generally not considered to be sites where an explosion incident on this scale could occur. Buncefield challenged this worldwide perception. The Control of Major Accident Hazards (COMAH) Competent Authority and Industry recognised that safety and environmental safeguards needed to reflect this new understanding even though they are extremely rare events. As a first step these strengthened safeguards are being put in place by industry to give added safety & environmental protection. The Regulators and Industry are working to identify and develop new solutions to set a new clearer and higher benchmark standard specific to large-scale petroleum storage. This will provide a significant challenge to industry and the UK fuel supply system. Hence, a ‘COMAH Competent Authority/Industry Standards Task Group’ was set up, first formally meeting on 14 June 2006, where over 50 people from industry with regulators from HSE, EA and SEPA agreed to undertake a comprehensive and thorough consideration of everything that needs to go right at fuel/oil storage facilities to ensure their safe operation.
On 22 September 2006, Industry committed to implementing the recommendations in this report. By the end of July 2007, the Task Group, with a strong level of industry support, will make its final recommendations to further enhance safety and environmental Standards so as to improve safety and prevent another Buncefield-type incident.
However, the joint industry and COMAH Competent Authority (CA) Task Group has recently issued its initial findings, calling for industry to take immediate measures to implement eight key action points at major petroleum storage facilities in the wake of the explosion. EnvironmentIQ, the risk management software specialists has commented on the report.
The actions called for relate to: pipeline transfers; tank overfill prevention; operating safety margins and level alarms; fire safe shut-off valves and remotely operated shut-off valves; containment bunds and other measures; and shift handover.
One of the points of the Buncefield Standards Task Group report specifies immediate action to be taken on pipeline transfers. The report states:
The safe management of product transfer will be improved by receiving site operators positively confirming that they can safely receive the product package before transfer starts and are able to initiate emergency shutdown if necessary. This will be achieved through the use of a standardised consignment transfer agreement.
Mike Hedger, CEO of EnvironmentIQ, comments on this saying: “Risk assessments are a vital tool for ensuring safe operation. Not only should the risk assessments be completely up to date and address specific processes, such as product transfer, they must be available to all personnel involved.
“Closely aligned to this should be a complete record of any incident or near-miss related to the process, no matter how small, to ensure pro-active process protection and improvement takes place.”
The last immediate action called for by the report relates to shift handover. The report says:
Effective shift/crew handover communication arrangements must be in place to ensure the safe continuation of operations [For completion by January 2007].
“It is vital,” says Hedger, “that there is a central repository of information that all staff contribute towards. In this central system all incidents, accidents and near-misses can be recorded in order to build up a clear picture of how the previous shift has managed its risks. This way, any issues which occur across multiple shifts can be investigated and actioned in a continuous way.”
Commenting on the action already taken by the COMAH competent authority that states:
A safety alert was issued in July 2006 on the testing of tank high-level switches to ensure that this was correctly carried out. Importantly, this was to make sure these switches are left in a fully working order following testing. Industry has advised the COMAH Competent Authority that necessary modifications have been carried out to prevent the switches from being left in a non-operating, dangerous, position following testing and maintenance.
Hedger’s view is that, “If this testing has taken place then all records of the testing, problems discovered and near-miss incidents should be recorded. From this information actions should be issued and performed. All of this information must be logged to provide a comprehensive audit trail and demonstrate compliance.”
Points 19b and 19d of the report detail how the task group is considering the ‘management of operations’ and the ‘design and maintenance of control and safety systems’. Hedger concludes, “What I believe the Task Group will find is that all the information to do with the management of operations and anything that touches on either health and safety or the environment should be recorded centrally and be visible across an enterprise. In this way, by correlating data the operators of these sites can be more confident that such an incident will never happen again.”
Helping to shape the emergency response to national and international major incidents
Hertfordshire Fire and Rescue Service’s report into the Buncefield Oil Depot fire - the largest fire in peacetime Europe - contains 30 recommendations, which will now be shared worldwide with emergency services and other agencies responsible for responding to major incidents.
Hertfordshire’s Chief Fire Officer, Roy Wilsher, launched the report on November 8 at the Fire Conference 2006 in Telford, where he gave a keynote speech and shared the stage with Fire Minister, Angela Smith.
The massive explosion on December 11, 2005, in Hemel Hempstead, saw an unprecedented emergency response. Control rooms across the south east handled more than 220 emergency calls to the incident. In total, 786,000 litres of foam was used to extinguish the fire in 22 tanks.
“This report follows months of investigation, debriefs and interviews with those involved in the response to Buncefield,” said Chief Fire Officer Roy Wilsher. “There has obviously been a great deal of interest in our response to the fire and the lessons we learned.
“This in-depth report examines the incident response step by step. We are very proud of our response to Buncefield but there are recommendations in the report which we have been looking at since the incident and which will now be shared with many organisations.”
Some of the recommendations include:
A national system needs to be established to maintain an accurate record of all fire responders at the scene to enable a rapid head count if required.
Early consideration needs to be given to the type, quantity and duration of deployment of national resources.
Earpieces for radios should be introduced to enable communication while wearing a helmet.
Consideration should be given to a national system of incident command support teams that could be deployed during a catastrophic or protracted incident.
