Gomez, a laundry worker, has lived in this city for more than 30 years. She spoke with Militant reporters July 31 in her living room, less than a mile from the plant. “Last March was the worst, but I have seen so many over the years,” she said.

The latest blast took place in the plant’s Resid Hydrotreating Unit, which combines heavy crude oil with hydrogen. Just over four months earlier, on March 23, a series of explosions in another unit killed 15 workers and injured 170 others.

Crude futures surpassed $62 a barrel in early August following this latest explosion. The day before a fire shut down Murphy Oil Corp.’s diesel hydrotreater at its Meraux, Louisiana, refinery. BP reported $12.2 billion in profits for the first half of the year.

Following the March 23 blast the company sought to lay the blame on the workers, firing as many as six employees alleging that they did not follow proper procedures. This time around, BP officials again were quick to scapegoat workers, declaring they would investigate whether contract or union workers had installed a pipe elbow in the wrong grade of steel.

Workers at the refinery have been the target of a more than 15-year antiunion drive, resulting in the combining of jobs, speedup, longer hours, and cutting corners on safety equipment, training, and equipment maintenance. During the 1990s, Amoco, which then owned the plant, cut the number of union workers by 19 percent. BP has since slashed an additional 18 percent, bringing the union workforce down to below 1,100.

BP leads the oil industry in the United States in deaths on the job over the last decade, with 22 killed since 1995—19 in the last 18 months.

Just minutes before the July 28 BP explosion, which was classified as a level 3 city emergency, the Dow Chemical plant next door issued a level 2 alert following a leak at its isopropanol unit.

“We are sitting on a time bomb here,” said Gomez.  
 
 
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