Buncefield oil explosion costs companies £9.5m

Concluding a four-month trial at St Albans Crown Court, Mr Justice Calvert-Smith said the companies had shown ’slackness, inefficiency and a more or less complacent attitude to safety’.

The incident is said to have started at around 05:30 on 11 December 2005 when an industrial petrol storage tank operated by HOSL started to overflow, in part due to a failure of two critical safety systems – an internal fuel levels gauge and the independent cut-off switch.

By 06:00, more than 250,000 litres of petrol spilled out of the tank and formed a vapour cloud, which spread over 190m². When it ignited the fire tore though 23 fuel tanks on site and burned for five days.

Special barriers designed to prevent run-off of fuel and fire-fighting chemicals also failed, leading to significant pollution to the surrounding area and the groundwater under the site.

The prosecution of Total UK, British Pipeline Agency (BPA), Hertfordshire Oil Storage (HOSL), TAV Engineering (TAV) and Motherwell Control Systems 2003, followed an investigation conducted by the Health and Safety Executive and Environment Agency.

The investigation uncovered a series of serious failings that led to the release of petrol.

The cost of dealing with the disaster has been estimated at more than £1bn, making it the most costly industrial incident in the UK.

Kevin Myers, HSE’s deputy chief executive, said: ‘Major-hazard industries must learn the lessons of events such as this.

‘From the board room down companies must ask themselves these questions: do we understand what could go wrong; do we know what our systems are to prevent this happening; and are we getting the right information to assure us they are working effectively?’