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Anxious staff at the giant Fawley oil refinery have revealed their fears of a major accident at the plant in a shocking new report obtained by the Daily Echo.

The workers highlight the refinery's ageing infrastructure and lack of maintenance among their major concerns.

Other staff at the complex - the largest of its kind in Britain - also admit under-reporting minor incidents, accidents and near-misses for fear of losing their cash bonuses received for their safety record, says the document.

In the report, inspectors from the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) conclude they had never encountered such a prominent and pervasive blame culture at any other refining and chemical complex in the country.

"Of particular concern was the extremely high numbers of staff stating that they would not be surprised if a major incident were to occur in the near future," inspectors wrote.

Now the powerful watchdog has given bosses of the refinery - which handles about 300,000 barrels of crude oil a day - until June 3 to draw up an action plan addressing their worker's concerns.

Refinery owners Esso and its parent company Texas-based ExxonMobil was last year ranked the most profitable company in the world. Yesterday it announced they were making £2.5m an hour.

Rejected Today the company strongly rejected any claims that Fawley was unsafe.

A statement issued by the firms said the report was based only on the personal opinion of a small percentage of workers and did not offer an objective assessment of the Fawley site.

"Esso and ExxonMobil Chemical at Fawley strongly reject any claims that the Fawley site is unsafe. Fawley is the safest refinery in the UK for both personal safety and process safety, according to the latest figures from UKPIA (UK Petroleum Industries Association)," the statement said.

It added: "We take the safety of our people and of the local community extremely seriously. We have rigorous safety procedures in place and are regularly inspected by the Health and Safety Executive as to the safety of our plant and processes."

The controversial claims come in the week Britain was plunged into an oil crisis after workers at the Grangemouth oil refinery, in Scotland, walked off the job over a pensions row and farmers staged a protest outside the Stanlow oil refinery, Cheshire, over rising fuel prices.

However, the New Forest refinery's oil production dwarfs both that of Grangemouth and Stanlow and one car in six in the UK runs on Fawley fuel.

Fawley - which turns crude oil from the North Sea, Europe and the Middle East into products such as petrol, diesel, aviation fuel and petrochemicals - has a workforce of 1,300 employees and 2,000 contractors.

The HSE's Human Factors Inspection Report was the result of a two-day audit held with about 78 employees on January 8 and 9 and a feedback meeting on January 29.

The most concerning finding for residents living close to the refinery, on the western shore of Southampton Water, is the fear of some staff that ageing infrastructure is making the plant a danger.

"Some employees acknowledge that the degraded infrastructure and lack of maintenance resources could result in a major accident.

"There was a lack of surprise or even an expectation that a major accident could occur," the report states.

One staff member even told inspectors during a focus group that they "would not bat an eyelid if the refinery blew up". Other workers likened the plant to a "classic car being driven down a motorway" or "a car run at 100 miles per hour with no maintenance".

The refinery was engulfed in controversy twice last year. In October, thousands of residents were told to stay indoors after hydrocarbon vapour began escaping from part of the huge petrochemical plant.

Three months earlier furious residents living in Netley complained after smoke billowed across Southampton Water following a fire in the refinery's steam plant.

The report also claims that although people were encouraged to report accidents or incidents, it seemed some staff were under-reporting because their bonuses were linked to safety.

"Since the reward scheme is linked to safety eg lack of incident, it appears to have provided individuals with an incentive to cover up and not report minor incidents, accidents and near-misses as otherwise they (and their team) will be blamed for an incident and lose safety bonuses," the report says.

"As minor incidents/accidents are not being reported, the site may be missing precursors to something significant.

"The prevailing view is that when something goes wrong, the search is on for someone (and their supervisor) to blame, the fact that systems may be at fault appears not to feature."

Worker's wide-ranging complaints also ranged from lack of morale to inadequate staffing levels, endemic overtime and ad hoc training. A fire, which occurred late last year, was put partially down to fatigue as a result of excessive working hours.

The report claims the organisation's blame culture stops some employees from raising issues and taking on additional responsibilities or overtime.

"Some participants felt uncomfortable raising issues, even with managers higher than the shift leader, but others felt that the culture is such that people don't want to raise problems and there would be repercussions if they did," the report states.

One worker was quoted as saying: "(Some) managers are vindictive, they'll get you back".

Senior staff expressed concern that trainees were not being given sufficient time to consolidate their training and that they may not have enough experience of the plant to deal with emergency situations.

There was a view that staffing levels were adequate on paper but in practice areas were badly staffed. This was partially attributed to stress-related sickness absence brought about by overtime, fatigue and the blame culture.

"There was a general lack-lustre feeling amongst staff, a lack of motivation compounded by fatigue and lethargy. Employees are beginning not to care about their roles or jobs being down to the required standard," the report states.

"One employee suggested that they had lost the feel good factor'. Some individuals raised concerns that the refinery was not so desirable a place to work anymore and that they were worried about coming to work because of safety issues.

Concern "Of particular concern was the extremely high numbers of staff stating that they would not be surprised if a major incident were to occur in the near future."

The inspectors concluded that significant work needed to be undertaken to achieve full compliance with legal duties.

A statement from the HSE said: "This report forms part of HSE's wider intervention strategy at such major hazards sites. It helps us to identify human factors issues for consideration as part of the wider management of risk at these sites.

"The responsibility for managing safety at Fawley rests with the site operators, Esso Petroleum Company Ltd and ExxonMobil Chemical. HSE routinely carries out inspections of the Fawley site and has an ongoing programme of interventions, as with other such similar sites."

"We will also continue our on-going work to make sure that all employees and contractors on-site fully understand the systems and resources that we have in place to effectively manage safety. To encourage employees to contribute freely and fully to this initiative, Fawley management made the document available to everyone on the site some weeks ago."

9:27am Saturday 3rd May 2008

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