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Chemical Accident Risks in U.S. Industry - A Preliminary Analysis of
Accident Risk Data from U.S. Hazardous Chemical Facilities, CEPPO by
James C. Belke (.PDF,
217K) (September 2000) 
Best seen as a follow-up to the Wharton Risk Management Center
RMP*Info analysis (see below), this effort includes a preliminary analysis
of the OCA portion of the RMP database. In the interest of completeness
and in order to put the OCA data in context, it also includes an overview
of the non-OCA portions of the database, and somewhat extends Wharton’s
analysis of the accident history data. Readers should be aware that,
except where noted, the statistics reported here are derived from a more
recent version of the RMP*Info database than was used by Wharton in their
original working paper, and therefore may differ slightly from statistics
reported in that study.
What Went Wrong? : Case Histories of Process Plant Disasters by Trevor A. Kletz
(May 1998) (Link)
Case histories reveal the causes and aftermaths of numerous plant disasters--almost all of which could have been prevented--and provide insight into how to avoid similar catastrophes. This expanded edition features sections and chapters on heat exchangers, furnaces, inherently safer design, and runaway reactions. It analyzes accidents that have occurred since publication of the 1988 edition, including the Phillips 66 company Houston Chemical Complex explosion and the Piper Alpha disaster. It is concerned with the immediate technical causes of these disasters and the changes in design and procedures needed to prevent them from happening again.
Paul
Kleindorfer, Harold Feldman and Robert Lowe, Accident Epidemiology
and the U.S. Chemical Industry: Preliminary Results from RMP*Info,
Wharton Risk Management
Center working paper 00-01-15 (February 2000)(.PDF,
123K)
American Petroleum Institute, 1999 Process Safety Performance
Measurement Report (April 2000)
(.PDF, 221K)
The report contains data on incidents from 23 U.S. petroleum
refineries and gas processing companies during 1999. This represents 47%
of the U.S. refining capacity.
National Safety Council, Guides to
Chemical Risk Management: New Ways to Prevent Chemical Incidents (.PDF,
682K)
Reproduced
from Guides
to Chemical Risk
Management, New Ways to Prevent Chemical Incidents with
permission from the
National Safety Council, May 1999. Includes statistics on U.S.
incidents (1987-1996) for broad measures of contributing causes.
National Safety Council, Commercial
Chemical Incidents (.PDF,
11K)
The NSC summarized some interesting statistics from a 1998 U.S.
Chemical Safety Board Study about the incidence and cause of chemical
incidents between 1987 and 1996.
James C. Belke, EPA CEPPO, Recurring Causes of Recent Chemical
Accidents (1998) (link)
This paper presents brief case studies of several recent chemical
accidents investigated by EPA and OSHA, and illustrates common root causes
and other recurring themes of those accidents.
Emergency Response Notification System (ERNS)
(link)
Notification ststistics reportable under CERCLA and the Oil Pollution
Act (OPA 90). Includes statistics for 1987-1994 based on size of the
release, and with a breakdown by state.
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