Supervisors at BP’s BP-N Toledo, Ohio refinery opted to keep the plant running despite a series of malfunctions and a petroleum spill in the hours before an accident that killed two workers last year, The Wall Street Journal reported on Tuesday.
The managers at the refinery continued to keep a nearby crude-processing tower running up until a fatal explosion and fire that evening, WSJ said, citing a preliminary report by government investigators.
The report by the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board, which hasn’t been made public, says that a morning valve failure and large spill of highly flammable naphtha on Sept. 20 led managers to shut down parts of the plant, WSJ said.
The two refinery workers died from their burns following an explosion in September 2022 at BP’s 150,800 barrel-per-day Toledo oil refinery.
A report published from U.S. federal investigators in March showed the company violated U.S. process safety rules and did not train workers properly at its Toledo, Ohio refinery.