BP: Texas City, the Gulf, and Texas City Again

Do a Google search on Texas City and BP and you’ll come up with links aplenty to provide the references this post is hinging itself upon. The Gulf mess, if you have to search at all, is even easier to find. There are far too many sources to even bother citing single ones here.

Basically, in BP we have a company that is fairly representative not just of the oil companies of the world, but of all corporations. Now lest anyone think this is painting the lot with one brush, read on before taking that view.

So, about BP, with timing measured from the date of this post back:

• A few years ago, a number of ongoing problems at the Texas City refinery BP owns caused a series of explosions that killed 15 people, and injured 170 or so.
• A few months ago, the company killed 11 more people by continuing the same shoddy disrespect toward risks they face daily in the industry.
• A few days ago, we learned that at the same Texas City plant they were supposed to learn from (largest fine in history, I believe), BP is still so wilfully negligent that repeated recent warnings did nothing to prevent the failure of a piece of ill-maintained equipment that released untold quantities of toxic gases.

What do these things have in common?

Well, BP for one, a company that actions suggest has probably the worst internal culture one can imagine, where greed trumps everything. The old maxim that one should judge actions rather than words, is an ideal applicant to suss out just what BP’s real problems are. Then again, tuning in for five minutes to the former CEO claiming serial ignorance of all things BP is enough to make the point.

The other thing they have in common is this: they are events that reflect the natural evolution of allowing corporations to exceed a manageable scale.

Ultimately, like many other corporations, BP is so large it is not being risk managed operationally. The people making final decisions are so far removed from the operational realities, they seem incapable of making cogent decisions. And barring any evidence to the contrary, it is fairly easy to realise all corporations beyond a certain scale suffer the same problem. The farther the autonomous decision-makers are from operations, the less they understand the critical risks.

To make the point specifically for BP:

• At Texas City, the explosion was a result of ages worth of poor risk management, caused because the people who had to OK operational management activities were too removed to grasp the inherent danger in allowing poor and no maintenance. The workers knew. Some even tried to observe the problems. But in the end, million dollar problems cannot be solved by a handful of workers who simply don’t get paid enough to sacrifice to solve the problem. Of course, the choice to work on, killed and injured many of those same workers. If even one of the people who had the authority to fix the known problems had to go into that workplace every day and sit there, risking their life, the problems would have been fixed – but folks like Tony Hayward have no actual experience, knowledge, or skills. (This opinion of the man is based solely on Hayward’s representations at the Congressional hearing where he essentially proclaimed himself ignorant of all things related to BP. Should he wish to now dispute that claim, I suspect the press would skewer him worse than they were doing prior to his foolish public mismanagement of the Gulf crisis, but I welcome his comments below. I would note, having skirted criminal charges to this point, by being incompetent, it might be unwise to claim otherwise now.)
• The explosion on that rig, as evidence is already showing, was because production outweighed risk management to a degree where several dozen indications of integrity problems were simply overruled by bean-counters. The men killed that day, though, continued to work – and taking that risk cost them their lives. No one is clean when it comes to the circumstances that poisoned vast tracks of the Gulf, slaughtering animals indiscriminately, and destroying coastal economies. But then the likely outcome of their refusing the work, would have been being out of work – and the fact they proceeded means they knew that, and further reflects the industry standards. It certainly crystallises the view of BP’s true culture, where production needs (wealth return, better know as greed) generates a complete disregard for the resources used to extract the wealth. They could deny it, but the only explanation other than intent is total incompetence, which seems possible but would call into question the need for a safety review at every one of their facilities worldwide.
• Now, the fact that the same Texas City plant was allowed to belch toxins, mere years after killing and injury workers, boggles the mind. My guess is that the people signing cheques, again, work very far away and at least downwind. When inspectors, government inspectors, are issuing tickets against a machine for months, which then fails, there is no falling back on the excuse that minimal damage was done. The actual problem has nothing to do with loss severity, but with the absolute negligence necessary to explain why even government warnings, at a site where you previously killed 15 people, didn’t motivate change. Any company that is that wilfully ignorant of cause and effect is a danger to themselves, and to the planet.

In every case, the culture is the problem, because the culture defines the actions of individual workers. BP has a large-scale corporate culture where the decision-makers are either negligent or ignorant of risks (which is, itself, negligence) of operations, but where those same people are the only ones with authority to make changes. If BP were unique (Google accidents in the industry worldwide and you know they are not; or look at the coal mining disasters worldwide), it would be impossible to allow such a company to continue to exist – the risk is too high. The problem, is that if anyone with the authority to do the right thing bothered to (seize BP’s assets and dismantle them, while charging the entire executive branch with criminal negligence causing death), it would start a domino effect. No large multinational would be safe.

Of course, there is an explanation for this: in a large company, it is too hard to actually manage operations effectively under status quo systems. That, it must be admitted, is true.

But, who can change that? The very people who rely upon it to excuse their negligence.

This final paragraph is where I make an admission that this view, written here, is solely mine. I work for a company that deals with risk management every day. I see this nonsense excuse thrown up at every turn, to avoid change, because if the systems in place worked – then the responsibility would be unavoidable. It is a disgusting side-effect of companies being too big for our greater good.