BP Chief Faces First Major Test Over Death of Worker at Texas Refinery

Tony Hayward is facing his first big test since taking over from Lord Browne as chief executive at BP after a worker was killed at the Texas City refinery in America. The refinery was the scene of the disastrous explosion in 2005 in which 15 people died and 180 were injured, damaging the reputation of Britain's biggest company.

More than 3,000 workers were sent home yesterday and non-essential work was halted at the massive plant, which is still working at half its capacity of 460,000 barrels a day. The latest death, of a staff member employed by Amex Electrical Services, is the second in 12 months at Texas City and comes after bitter criticism of safety management systems there by a variety of commissions and other public bodies. BP said last night it was "deeply saddened" by the latest tragedy and had started an internal investigation as well as notifying the US occupational safety and health administration, which monitors safety in the workplace.

Asked whether safety remained a problem at the plant, Ronnie Chappell, a company official, said BP had just completed 8m man-hours without lost time for injury, but added: "The achievements of the last seven or eight months are not worth very much when you experience a tragedy like this."

The Amex employee had been working on the reactivation of a residual hydro-treater which had been out of action since August 2005. He died after being taken to the University of Texas Medical Branch in Galveston, Texas.

The accident will trigger another flurry of regulatory probes into safety measures at the refinery. A report by the US Chemical Safety Board into the 2005 explosion said BP had presided over continual failings at the country's third-largest refinery.

The damning findings by the chemical board and other agencies, played a major part in undermining the previously good reputation of BP and its former chief executive.

They came alongside a series of other problems in America, including pipeline fractures in Alaska, platform upsets in the US Gulf and propane trading irregularities, and helped bring forward the retirement of Lord Browne.

The latest incident is the first to happen since Mr Hayward, the former head of exploration and production, took over the top job on May 1.

Texas City was due to be open for full operation by the end of this year, and Mr Chappell said last night that BP was still aiming for that target.