The Galveston County Daily News

TEXAS CITY — BP has asked the Occupational Safety and Health Administration for more time to meet requirements in an agreement to improve safety at its Texas City refinery, federal regulators said.

In a letter to BP last month, OSHA told the company it had failed to make agreed-upon safety improvements at the refinery following the March 23, 2005, explosions that killed 15 workers.

In the Aug. 3 letter to refinery manager Keith Casey, Mark R. Briggs, director of the agency’s Houston South Area Office, said that if specific improvements were not made by Wednesday, it “would constitute a failure to comply with the terms of the 2005 agreement and/or failure to abate” safety hazards at the refinery.

Wednesday marked four years since OSHA handed down a series of citations against BP for safety violations and levied a $21.5 million fine after its investigation into the 2005 blasts.

Diana Petterson, OSHA’s public affairs director, said the agency had received BP’s petition for modification to its settlement agreement Monday and was “taking that request under advisement as part of its ongoing inspection at BP.”

While not addressing the details of the OSHA letter, BP maintains it has complied with the agreement.

“BP Products has completed more than 550 OSHA citation abatement requirements and process safety related recommendations and has significantly reduced hazards on-site and off-site,” company spokesman Daren Beaudo said. “We believe we are in full compliance with our commitments.”

Petterson said that was no guarantee BP would be granted the extension.

U.S. Labor Secretary Hilda Solis “has made it clear that the Department of Labor takes worker safety very seriously,” Petterson said. “The department will enforce the law to ensure such tragedies are avoided.”