LyondellBasell Matagorda Facilities Earn Five Awards for Safety, Community Service

LyondellBasell’s Matagorda Plant and its Equistar Chemicals pipeline operations, which includes a storage facility in Markham, recently won five awards from the Texas Chemical Council for outstanding safety, environmental performance, emergency response and community involvement.

The Matagorda polymers plant brought home the Best in Texas in Safety among facilities with 61-200 employees. Nine of the company’s Texas facilities won a total of 11 awards for 2009 performance.

“LyondellBasell is committed to the highest standards in safety and environmental performance and to building strong relationships within the communities that surround our facilities,” said Sam Smolik, LyondellBasell’s vice president for health, safety, environment and operational excellence. “It is an honor to receive these awards, which show the dedication of our employees to safe and responsible operations.”

The Best in Texas in Safety award is presented to the top facility that has met the criteria for Distinguished Service and maintains a contractor safety program under TCC’s recommended guidelines for contractor safety. The award is voted on by the TCC Occupational Safety Committee. The plant’s safety program also earned the Zero Incident Rate Award for Quality Safety Performance because it had no employee OSHA recordable injuries or illnesses in 2009 and the Distinguished Service Award for Quality Safety Performance for its demonstrated improvement in its injury and illness incident rate for 2009 when compared to the previous three years. A Caring for Texas Award also was presented for outstanding commitment to community awareness, emergency response, pollution prevention and security in 2009.

LyondellBasell’s pipeline operations received a Certificate of Achievement in Caring for Texas for demonstrating commitment in community awareness, emergency response, pollution prevention and security in 2009. Along with the Markham storage facility, LyondellBasell has pipeline running through Matagorda County, part of a network of pipe that extends from Mt. Belvieu to Corpus Christi and includes two storage facilities and its headquarters in Pasadena’s Bayport industrial district. Other LyondellBasell facilities capturing TCC awards include Bayport Choate, Bayport Underwood, Chocolate Bayou Polymers, Mt. Belvieu and both plants in the Channelview Complex. All of these sites are in the greater Houston area.

The Caring for Texas program is sponsored by TCC to recognize petrochemical facilities’ exemplary achievements in plant operation performance categories, and commitment to their employees and surrounding communities. “Through our different awards programs, TCC strives to recognize those who have demonstrated efforts to improve our industry through safety, community awareness, emergency response and overall dedication to the chemical industry,” said Hector Rivero, TCC president and chief executive officer.

Approximately 80 awards were awarded to members of the Texas chemical industry on June 10.

Caring for Texas award applications are reviewed by a combination of community leaders and industry representatives across the state. To qualify for an application review, petrochemical sites must have operated the year without an environmental or safety event that impacted the community, engaged in community outreach activities, made available its environmental and safety performance reporting system to the community, had no fatalities and be a TCC member in good standing.

The LyondellBasell Matagorda Plant received a Best in Texas in Safety Award from the Texas Chemical Council June 10. LyondellBasell employees, from left, Chris Block, David Pena, Kimberly Hubenak, Lloyd Atherton and Kirby Peery accept their award from TCC Occupational Safety Committee Chairman Bobby Laughlin. The facility won a total of four awards for outstanding safety performance, community service, emergency response and environmental performance.