So long after the event, it is easy to assume there is nothing new in the US Chemical Safety and Hazards Board's report on the BP refinery accident - 335 pages long, two years in the making. The company's response to the report of the BP-appointed independent panel, led by James Baker; the planned replacement of Lord Browne as chief executive; his successor Tony Hayward's insistence on putting safety and reliability at the centre of the corporate culture: all show how BP is raising its game. Some of the CSB's recommendations - for instance, the appointment of a board member with process safety expertise - seem almost superfluous.

But the CSB, unlike the Baker report, does finally go to the heart of what many suspected was the problem that led to the Texas City disaster: "a combination of cost-cutting, production pressures and failure to invest".