BP rubbishes Enron link

Lawyers for BP have objected to comparisons made between the British oil giant’s deadly 2005 plant explosion in the US and examples of corporate mismanagement such as Enron’s collapse.

The comparisons were made during jury selection yesterday in the first civil trial stemming from the Texas refinery blast that killed 15 people and injured more than 170 others. Jury selection is set to resume on Tuesday.

Many potential jurors said they could not be fair to the oil giant because they believe the petrochemical industry puts profits ahead of safety.

As Brent Coon, an attorney representing four of the five workers whose lawsuits are set to be tried, talked to potential jurors, he displayed a picture of Enron’s logo on two large screens behind him.

Jim Galbraith, one of BP’s attorneys, objected to the oil company being compared to what happened at Enron, which went bankrupt and out of business in 2001, stranding employees and investors. Galbraith accused Coon of arguing his case before the trial had begun.

“We are not trying to say BP is Enron. But Enron did have a major case with a lot of publicity and did a lot of things wrong,” Mr Coon said before state judge Susan Criss ordered the Enron logo off the screens.

BP’s attorneys grilled prospective jurors who indicated on questionnaires that they came in with biases toward the oil company, or the petrochemical industry in general.

Many in the jury pool said they believed BP and other oil companies were untrustworthy, put the lives of their workers at risk and did not care about safety.

The US chemical safety and hazard investigation board, one of several agencies that investigated the accident, found that BP fostered bad management at the plant and that cost-cutting moves by BP were factors in the explosion.

An internal report by BP released in May said there was a culture at the plant that seemed to ignore risk, tolerated non-compliance, and accepted incompetence.

The lawsuits by the five plaintiffs, barring last-minute settlements, are to be the first to be tried in connection with the blast. The plaintiffs include four contract workers who say they were injured and the 6-year-old and 11-year-old sons of a contract worker whose suicide six weeks after the blast is being attributed by his lawyers to the trauma of the accident.

Originally, seven lawsuits were to be tried but two were settled before jury selection began. About 1,350 lawsuits have been settled.

The blast has cost the company at least £1 billion in compensation payouts, repairs and lost profit.

The trial, if it proceeds, could last up to two months.

The Texas City explosion occurred when part of the plant’s isomerisation unit, which boosts the level of octane in gasoline, overfilled with highly flammable liquid hydrocarbons. A geyser-like release of flammable liquid and vapour ignited as the unit started up. Alarms that should have warned of the overfilling equipment failed to work at the plant about 40 miles south-east of Houston.