Buncefield response

Reports and recommendations arising from the Competent Authority's response to the Buncefield incident

In the early hours of Sunday 11 December 2005, a number of explosions occurred at Buncefield Oil Storage Depot, Hemel Hempstead, Hertfordshire. At least one of the initial explosions was of massive proportions and there was a large fire, which engulfed a high proportion of the site. Over 40 people were injured; fortunately there were no fatalities. Significant damage occurred to both commercial and residential properties in the vicinity and a large area around the site was evacuated on emergency service advice. The fire burned for several days, destroying most of the site and emitting large clouds of black smoke into the atmosphere.

The Health and Safety Executive (HSE) and Environment Agency (EA) investigated the incident and secured convictions against five companies, who were were ordered to pay almost £10m in combined fines and costs.

Reports and recommendations

The following reports and recommendations are available from The National Archive:

• Buncefield: Why did it happen?
• The Process Safety Leadership Group (PSLG) Final Report - Safety and environmental standards for fuel storage sites
  The Process Safety Leadership Group (PSLG) was designed to meet the need for an effective framework for interaction between industry, trade unions and the Competent Authority (CA); a framework in which they could carry out a dialogue to jointly develop, progress and implement meaningful, effective recommendations and practices that improve safety in our industries. This PSLG final report builds on the improvements developed by the Buncefield Standards Task Group, providing full and comprehensive guidance in addressing all 25 recommendations of the MIIB's report on the design and operation of fuel storage sites.
• PSLG principles of process safety leadership
• Chemical Business Association: Safety Leadership principles
• Buncefield Major Incident Investigation Board (MIIB) Report on HSEs policies and procedures
• The Buncefield Major Incident - Ten years on - A report by the COMAH Strategic Forum

Research reports relevant to Buncefield

The following research reports are available from our research section:

• RR511 - Revised land use planning arrangements around large scale petroleum depots
• RR512 - Review of significance of societal risk for proposed revision to land use planning arrangements for large scale petroleum storage sites
• RR716 - A review of Layers of Protection Analysis (LOPA) analyses of overfill of fuel storage tanks
• RR718 - Buncefield Explosion Mechanism Phase 1 (Volumes 1 and 2)
• RR760 - Mechanical integrity management of bulk storage tanks
• RR908 - Vapour cloud formation: Experiments and modelling
• RR936 - Buncefield investigation - Liquid flow and vapour production
• RR872 - Identification of instrumented level detection and measurement systems used with Buncefield in-scope substances