Documents petrochemical industry 45 results

"Recently, there has been a move to use a ‘fine-grained' approach to the study of the multinational companies (MNCs). In this paper, we examine in depth a significant part of the maintenance activities in the process plants of petrochemical MNCs in the UK. While the MNCs have de-recognized their internal trade unions, and out-sourced maintenance to on-site contractors, we find that such work is still linked to trade union recognition. In this sector, the MNCs have in general adopted a national agreement for their on-site contractors. This paper discusses and evaluates the changing situation and provides a unique contribution to theory regarding the rationale behind trade union recognition in that isomorphism underlies the national recognition for trade unions in the sector and, given the changing political situation in the UK, we argue this is ultimately based on legitimacy-seeking."

"Alarm management, which alerts process operators to deviations of variables from designed limits, has been a key safety issue in a petrochemical plant. Petrochemical processes frequently operate upon a multitude of steady states, transitions and states in abnormal events. Some single-fault scenarios producing similar symptoms usually cause false alarms, while fault propagation scenarios produce alarm floods which will overwhelm critical alarms. A two-level intelligent alarm management framework (IAMF) is proposed considering fault interdependence in plant operation, including alarm filtering first and root-cause diagnosis second. The two-level IAMF with different strategies are applicable to various hazard scenarios involving multi-fault with similar symptoms and propagation scenarios. Two cases are studied applying the IAMF to FCCU, in which the root causes of alarm floods can be identified. Redundant alarms, false alarms and alarm failures cut down effectively, thus ensuring the safety of the petrochemical process and reducing economic losses caused by improper alarms."

"Le 21 septembre 2001, l'usine AZF explosait : 31 morts, 20 000 blessés, un quartier dévasté et au moins cinquante mille sinistrés. À ce jour, la seule littérature disponible sur la catastrophe AZF est celle qui cherche à innocenter Total, quitte à reprendre des mensonges grossiers. Mais pourtant les faits sont là, qui montrent à l'évidence la responsabilité du trust pétrolier. Cet ouvrage revient sur les faits, sur ce qu'ont vécu les sinistrés et les ouvriers de l'usine détruite. Et les faits sont si évidents, si clairs, qu'eux seuls résisteront au temps. L'enquête judiciaire a pour sa part démontré une grave faute industrielle, rendue possible par une carence de prévention et de surveillance, d'économies en fait qui se sont révélées criminelles. Si le procès s'est conclu par une condamnation de Total, c'est aussi grâce aux multiples témoignages et actions de sinistrés et d'ouvriers qui refusaient de lier leur sort à celui de leur patron. Et qu'après coup ce procès ait été cassé n'est qu'une confirmation de la puissance du système Total, contre laquelle certains se mobilisent toujours. L'auteur a vécu tout cela en première ligne, en essayant de faire face avec ses voisins de la cité du Parc. A quelques dizaines, sinistrés et salariés, ils avaient la conviction que les seuls combats que l'on est sûrs de perdre sont ceux auxquels on renonce. Ils n'ont pas renoncé. Refusant les mensonges patronaux et les couardises des autorités, ils se sont battus. Ce livre est leur histoire."

"Community members living near any one of Louisiana's 160 chemical plants or refineries have always said that accidents occurring in these petrochemical facilities significantly impact their health and safety. This article reviews the iWitness Pollution Map tool and Rapid Response Team (RRT) approach led by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an environmental nonprofit group, and their effectiveness in documenting these health and safety impacts during petrochemical accidents. Analysis of a January 2013 RRT deployment in Chalmette, LA, showed increased documentation of current petrochemical accidents and suggested increased preparedness to report future accidents. The RRT model encourages government response and enforcement agencies to integrate with organized community groups to fully document the impacts during ongoing accidents, lead a more timely response to the accident, and prevent future accidents from occurring."

"Esta investigación presenta un estudio sobre los cambios en la salud de los trabajadores, durante treinta y cinco años de trabajo de la Tropical Oil Company en Barrancabermeja, Colombia. El primer período, entre 1916 y 1921, presenta una alta mortalidad debido a enfermedades tropicales, el desarrollo de algunos de los servicios médicos de la empresa y ninguna presencia de servicios de salud pública. El segundo período, la empresa adelanta un gran plan para aumentar la producción, en que la salud es importante, sobre todo por los trabajadores extranjeros. Municipio se crea en un área separada que consiste en el enclave y la población nativa. En el tercer período, entre 1929 y 1940, la empresa presenta un aumento del interés sobre los accidentes de trabajo y el municipio se desarrolla en un hospital y una unidad sanitaria. En el cuarto periodo, la compañía incorpora un nuevo modelo de la medicina constructiva mientras que el municipio no puede consolidar su hospital y la unidad de salud. La salud de los trabajadores fue determinado por el desarrollo de la producción de petróleo en la frontera, en un proceso del imperialismo, donde la declaración de propiedades saludables de los sindicatos ocupan un lugar importante en el frente de la debilidad del Estado para hacer cumplir las obligaciones de la empresa."

"Case reports and epidemiological studies of workers exposed to benzene have demonstrated associations with a number of lymphohematopoietic diseases, but the association with multiple myeloma (MM) has been less apparent. Data from all of the "benzene cohort studies" conducted to date have been selected and evaluated for inclusion in a meta-analysis. The analysis demonstrates a significant excess in the relative risk (RR) of MM in relation to benzene exposure. Pooling the data from seven cohort studies, a meta-analysis yields a statistically significant weighted RR estimate of 2.13 (95% CI = 1.31–3.46). In the analysis of cohort data, an understanding of the cohort follow-up period in relation to benzene exposure and RR of MM is important. Exposure-related RRs of disease decline after the median latency periods are exceeded, particularly when exposure has terminated decades earlier. The positive epidemiological evidence for benzene as a cause of MM is supported by biological plausibility for such an effect from benzene exposure. Studies of refinery workers are difficult to interpret in relation to benzene exposure and risk of MM, but are limited in the study design and analysis. Nonetheless, they provide some support for an association between refinery work and MM."

"In 1987, the Oil, Chemical and Atomic Workers International Union (OCAW) was funded as one of the original eleven awardees of the Superfund Worker Training Program of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. the OCAW, with the Labor Institute, developed a hazardous waste worker and hazardous materials emergency responder health and safety training program that was specific to its members in the represented industries. A social history is developed to explore a union-led, worker health education intervention. The program sought to develop worker-trainers who would conduct the training, using the Small-Group Activity Method, participate in curriculum development, and ultimately use health and safety training as a vehicle for identifying, developing and mobilizing health and safety activists among the membership."

"In the last 50 years, the petrochemical industry has massively introduced thousands of synthetic organic chemicals into the environment, only recently acknowledging that most of them are hazardous to living things. The industry has unwittingly appropriated from the living world its once-exclusive capability to produce organic chemicals, but has created substances, such as DDT, dioxin, and PCBs, that do not occur in living things and are therefore untested by the long course of evolution. Now, transmuted into biotechnology, the industry is making the same mistake. This time, again unencumbered by precautionary testing, it is creating transgenic organisms that are incompatible with the natural systems of inheritance. Once again, an informed public is needed to prevent an ill-conceived industrial venture far more threatening than the one that we are still struggling to remedy. "