Shell Not Cited for Falsified Weld Tests

A state investigation confirmed that hardness tests were falsified on 65 welds at the Shell Oil Co. refinery in Carson, but concluded that the faked results were an isolated incident involving two inexperienced workers employed by a New Jersey-based contractor, officials said Thursday.

Based on its inspection, the California Division of Occupational Safety and Health issued a five-count citation to the contractor, Cooperheat Inc. of Somerset, N.J., for violations of general safety standards, but imposed no fines. Shell was not cited.

Inspections of six other area refineries and power plants serviced by Cooperheat turned up no similar problems, said Richard Rice, a Cal/OSHA spokesman. The inspections were prompted by an employee complaint.

“The complaint was valid in that the testing had been falsified in this one situation,” Rice said. But, he added, “they checked with six refineries altogether, and found the problem at no other refineries, so it was an isolated thing.”

No fines were assessed because the welds, which were on piping that would have carried very hot and highly flammable petroleum liquids, were never put into service and never threatened any employees, Rice said. The welds have been retreated and have passed subsequent tests.

Shell officials have said that internal audit procedures would have caught the faked test results before the welds went into service, even if Cal/OSHA had not stepped in. Nevertheless, Shell has “enhanced” its audit procedures to confirm that hardness tests are accurate in the future, said Shell spokesman Gene Munger.

Cooperheat has corrected procedures cited by Cal/OSHA, fired one of two employees who conducted the tests and suspended a supervisor who left the employees unattended.

The results of Cal/OSHA’s investigation, which was completed late last month, come while new questions are being raised about the safety of refineries in the wake of the massive explosion earlier this month that killed 17 at the Arco Chemical Co. plant in Channelview, Tex.

That blast and a string of similar accidents in recent months have focused attention specifically on the training of contract workers who do routine maintenance and repair work at refineries on a temporary basis.

At the Shell plant, falsifications occurred when two Cooperheat employees tested the hardness of welds that had been “stress-relieved,” a process during which new welds are heated then cooled to reduce their brittleness.

Despite their inexperience, both employees were left to conduct the tests alone while a supervisor was called away.

One of the employees had been on the job only a few weeks and a background check had not yet been completed on him, said Emmett J. Lescroart, Cooperheat’s chief executive, in an earlier interview. It was that employee who the company believes falsified the hardness test results, Lescroart said.

As a result, the welds were actually more brittle than they were supposed to be.

The employee was fired when the background check revealed questionable information about him. On March 19, the fired employee blew the whistle to Cal/OSHA about the falsified tests, Cooperheat officials said.

Almost immediately, Cal/OSHA began its investigation. It retested 65 welds in two of the refinery’s operating units. All failed. Cal/OSHA then asked Cooperheat for records of similar work it had performed in other area refineries in the previous 90 days, and broadened its investigation.

In April, Cal/OSHA inspected the Mobil refinery in Torrance, the Chevron refinery in El Segundo, the Texaco refinery in Wilmington and the Atlantic Richfield Co. refinery in Carson, as well as a steam plant operated by Southern California Edison and a power plant operated by the city Department of Water and Power.

Since then, Cooperheat has changed its procedures so that new employees are not allowed to work in the field until background checks are completed, and are not allowed to conduct tests without supervision, said Michael Urban, vice president of Cooperheat’s Western Region.