SILVER EAGLE REFINING INC

According to U.S. Department of Labor enforcement records, SILVER EAGLE REFINING INC — a petroleum refineries facility located at 2355 S 1100 W, WOODS CROSS, UT 84087 — was the subject of a formal OSHA inspection that resulted in 75 citation(s) and cumulative proposed penalties of $584,500.00. The inspection case was opened on 2009-11-05.

This facility represents one of the most severe enforcement actions in the OSHA SVEP database. Willful violations combined with penalties exceeding $100,000 indicate a pattern of deliberate non-compliance that poses an imminent danger to workers.

BLS Injury Data: According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (2022), this industry sector has an occupational injury rate of 3.3 per 100 full-time workers — 22% above the national average of 2.7. The sector fatality rate is 2.3 per 100,000 workers.

Industry Benchmark: The total penalty of $584,500.00 is more than 69.5× the national average of $8,414.32 for facilities in the Manufacturing sector (NAICS 324110). This sector encompasses 52,095 inspected facilities nationwide with aggregate penalties totaling $438.3M.

State Context: Within UT, this facility's penalty places it at the 100th percentile among 21,375 inspected facilities. The statewide average penalty is $1,557.94.

Citation Analysis: The inspection produced 75 citations spanning 2 distinct OSHA regulatory standards. The citation breakdown includes: 9 serious — A workplace hazard that could cause death or serious physical harm exists, and the employer knew or should have known about the condition. 1 other-than-serious — The violation has a direct relationship to job safety and health but is unlikely to cause death or serious physical harm. 5 willful — The employer intentionally and knowingly committed the violation, demonstrating either an intentional disregard for the requirements of the OSH Act or plain indifference to employee safety and health.

Enforcement Timeline: Citations were issued beginning July 9, 2009 with the latest abatement deadline set for June 1, 2014. Of the 75 total citations, 9 (12%) have been marked as abated in DOL records, which may indicate ongoing compliance gaps requiring further regulatory attention.

Penalty Assessment: The cumulative penalty of $584,500.00 reflects OSHA's gravity-based penalty calculation methodology, which considers the severity of potential injury, the probability of occurrence, the employer's size, good faith, and violation history. The per-citation average of $7,793.33 falls within the standard penalty range.

The enforcement action against Silver Eagle Refining Inc. following the November 2009 inspection reveals a catastrophic breakdown in Process Safety Management (PSM) protocols, characterized by a staggering volume of willful violations. The $584,500 penalty—vastly exceeding industry averages for small-to-midsize refineries—reflects the severity of the facility's disregard for life-critical safety systems. The citation patterns, specifically targeting 29 CFR 1910.119 (Mechanical Integrity, Process Hazard Analysis, and Operating Procedures), indicate that the facility was operating under conditions of extreme volatility. The multiple "Willful" designations for 1910.119(j) (Mechanical Integrity) are particularly damning; they signify that management was aware of deteriorating equipment or inadequate inspection frequencies yet intentionally failed to rectify these hazards. For workers, these violations meant they were operating within a high-pressure refining environment where the primary safeguards against catastrophic release, fire, or explosion were effectively non-functional. The legal significance of the willful citations cannot be overstated, as they demonstrate "plain indifference" to worker safety, a threshold that often triggers enhanced oversight through OSHA’s Severe Violator Enforcement Program and potential criminal referrals if a fatality had occurred. This was not a case of isolated human error but a systemic management failure where the fundamental pillars of process safety were bypassed to maintain production, creating a high-probability environment for a multi-fatality event.