BP pays 50-million-dollar fine for Texas refinery explosion

Aug 12, 2010, 20:41 GMT

Washington - Oil giant BP Plc has agreed to a 50.6-million- dollar fine for security lapses that led to a 2005 explosion at a Texas oil refinery, the US Labour Department said Thursday.

The penalty is the largest in the agency's history, but is small compared to the more than 6 billion dollars BP has already paid in a separate effort to clean up the current oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.

The 2005 explosion in Texas City, Texas, killed 15 workers and injured 170 others. BP was cited by the Labour Department for hundreds of security violations both before and after the explosion.

'The size of the penalty rightly reflects BP's disregard for workplace safety and shows that we will enforce the law so workers can return home safe at the end of the day,' Labour Secretary Hilda Solis said in a statement.

In addition to the penalty, BP agreed to invest 500 million dollars in its own efforts to step up safety at the refinery.

Steve Cornell, head of BP's refining operations in the US, said the British company had already taken steps to improve safety at the refinery since the explosion. BP was 'determined to carry this effort forward effectively in the future.'