Small enterprises, safety regulation

Industries which produce chemical substances are the main sites at risk for chemical lesions as one would expect. However, they are not the only ones. All industries which utilize chemical products are evidently of concern. This is in view of the transformation of primary products or with the purpose of maintaining machine tools accidents can occur in all the users. Even small enterprises have some non-negUgible risks. The home of each of these latter is the least protected by regulations. Finally, transportation probably represents the greatest risk because this generates accidents outside of sites subject to safety regulations and, in this way, involves the unprotected and unprepared neighboring population. 

The Hydrocarbon Processing Industry (HPI), has traditionally been reluctant to invest capital where an immediate direct return on the investment to the company is not obvious, as would any business enterprise. Additionally financial fire losses in the petroleum and related industries were relatively small up to about the 1950 s. This was due to the small size of facilities and the relatively low value of oil and gas to the volume of production. Until 1950, a fire or explosion loss of more than 5 million U. S. Dollars had not occurred in the refining industry in the USA. Also in this period, the capital intensive offshore oil exploration and production industry were only just beginning. The use of gas was also limited early in the century. Consequentially its value was also very low. Typically production gas was immediately flared or the well was capped and considered as an uneconomical reservoir. Since gas development was limited, large vapor explosions were relatively rare and catastrophic destruction from petroleum incidents was essentially unheard of. The outlays for petroleum industry safety features were traditionally the absolute minimum required by governmental regulations. The development of loss prevention philosophies and practices were therefore not effectively developed within the industry. 

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