Texas City Celebrates 20 Years of VPP Safety Success
In 2001, the Valero Texas City Refinery became Valero’s first refinery to achieve Voluntary Protection Program (VPP) Star Site status, the highest safety designation by the U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA). Today, Texas City continues that tradition as the first site to reach VPP Star Site status for 20 consecutive years. This significant safety achievement was celebrated on June 22 with employees and company leadership.
Valero leads the refining sector with the most VPP-approved sites at the Ardmore, Corpus Christi East and West, Houston, McKee, Memphis, St. Charles, Texas City and Three Rivers refineries. Valero also has two Valero VPP sites, at the Pembroke and Quebec refineries.
For a site to earn VPP Star Site status, an application is submitted to OSHA for review. Then the site goes through a weeklong Occupational Safety/PSM audit conducted by an independent team of safety and health experts. For sites to achieve Star status, they must demonstrate enhanced safety systems have been implemented and embraced in a collaborative way by site leaders and employees. Once approved, sites are reassessed by OSHA every three to five years in order to maintain their VPP status.
