What Went Wrong: Oil Refinery Disaster   September 14, 2005
12:00 AM Text Size: A . A . A DATE: MARCH 23, 2005  For safety
inspector Charles Ramirez, March 23 got off to a good start. His
team of specialized contractors from Houston-based JE Merit had
just polished off a celebratory lunch held on the grounds of
BP's massive Texas City, Texas, refinery. The 1200-acre facility
processes up to 460,000 barrels of raw crude oil a day, and the
contractors had just wrapped up their part in its complicated,
nine-week "turnaround," or scheduled maintenance cycle,
accident-free. When the lunch hour ended, Ramirez's colleagues
returned to their offices in temporary trailers while he left to
run a final safety check.  What he didn't realize as he hustled
across the yard was that, just 100 ft. behind him, the huge
steel isomerization unit was being restarted after two weeks
spent offline. The "isom" unit, which boosts the octane level of
gasoline, was about to cause the deadliest U.S. refinery
disaster in a decade.  The m