More like this
BP among firms fined for Buncefield oil blast
Business Digest: Five firms owned by likes of Total, BP and Shell hit by fines and costs amounting to £10m
A judge has ordered five firms, including one part-owned by crisis-hit BP, to pay almost £10m between them in fines and costs for their part in the explosion at Buncefield oil depot in Hertfordshire, which exploded in December 2005.
The blast is said to have been the biggest in peacetime Europe: it measured 2.4 on the Richter scale and could be heard 125 miles away.
Judge Sir David Calvert-Smith commented that it was miraculous that nobody had died in the explosion: "Had the explosion happened during a working day, the loss of life may have been measured in tens or even hundreds.
"The failures which led in particular to the explosion were failures which could have combined to produce these consequences at almost any hour of any day. The fact that they did so at 6.01 on a Sunday morning was little short of miraculous."
He ordered French oil company Total, which owns 60 per cent of the depot, to pay £3.6m for failing to protect workers and the public plus £2.6m costs. Hertfordshire Oil Storage Limited received a £1.45m fine with £1m costs and British Pipeline Agency Ltd, which is co-owned by BP and Shell, must pay a £300,000 fine plus £480,000 costs.
Read a full report at BBC News. ·
