Following the tragic Texas City incident in March 2005, the executive leadership of BP reviewed the fundamentals of the company's approach to process safety and operational excellence. This evaluation has led to significant changes designed to improve safety and operations, not just at Texas City refinery, but across the BP Group worldwide.

For instance, U.S. Refining has already made progress with respect to the Baker Panel recommendations, which can be grouped under 4 main headings:

• Leadership

• Integrated and comprehensive process safety management system

• Process safety knowledge and expertise

• Process safety culture

The changes go beyond adoption of the Baker Panel's recommendations, and the paper will also discuss other issues, such as competencies, practices/procedures, metrics, and auditing, and it will highlight some wider messages for the industry.