Mobil Refinery Safety Record

The recent incident at the Texaco refinery once again has brought industrial safety to the headlines.

Our facility has experienced problems in the past, everyone knows that. However, I believe that you did your readers a serious disservice in your coverage of the Texaco incident when you decided to focus on past occurrences at our refinery rather than to look at the present. None of your reporters contacted Mobil about the tremendous strides we have made in operating our refinery in a safe, reliable and environmentally sound manner.

Our program of upgrading equipment, instituting safety training programs for our contractors and employees, and placing an intense focus on safety and integrity at all levels is producing results.

In 1991, the refinery turned in the best safety performance record in its 60-year history. This level of safety performance earned awards from the National Petroleum Refiners Assn. for improved safety performance, as well as First Place and Most Improved Occupational Safety Awards from the largest California chapter of the National Safety Council.

Our 1992 safety record, as compared with 1991, continues to show significant reductions in all safety categories: Total Injury Frequency, OSHA Recordable Injuries and Lost Workday Injuries. Today, the refinery’s safety performance record ranks among the top 1% of all U.S. refineries working more than a million man-hours per year. (Recently, we surpassed 2 million man-hours without a lost-workday injury).

The motto of Team Torrance, the 1,000 employees at the Mobil Refinery, is “Running Right, Running Safe.” Our team is absolutely committed to operate our facility safely and injury free. Our goal is to make our refinery the best in the world--to run right and run safe every day. I believe we are well on the way to achieving that goal.

You ought to write about this to set the record straight--for the 1,000 dedicated members of Team Torrance and for our community.

JOEL H. MANESS

Mobil refinery manager