Analysis of Safety-Related Incidents Reported at a Major North American Petrochemical Processing Facility between 2016 and 2020

Abstract

Chemistry is a potentially dangerous enterprise. Major incidents in academic and industrial settings are commonly used in the form of case studies to suggest lessons and inspire change; however, a truism of safety studies is that major incidents often arise from the same causes as those that previously caused minor events that remained unaddressed. However, major events make up only a very small percentage of the events that could, with multiple failures, lead to the adverse outcomes. In this study, we examined 258 routine safety incidents reported between 2016 and 2020 at a major petrochemical processing facility site in North America. Restricting the analysis to incidents that included both chemicals and human error reduced the sample to 75 incidents that were categorized via quantitative content analysis. Findings showed a significant effect of day of the week; most incidents involved mid-operation errors and related to administrative issues. Findings highlight a culture of reporting even superficially minor incidents, which may lead to improved safety-implementation policies that could help prevent major incidents from occurring. We propose a crude measure to determine the rigor of a reporting culture: the incident severity reporting threshold index, the ratio between the number of incidents involving injuries, and the total number of reported incidents. We strongly suggest that the severity threshold for reporting be lowered so as to address hazards and emergent risks before they have an opportunity to become dangerous. The implications of incident reporting and safety in industry are considered in relation to academic settings.