Day 15. Safety procedures were not reviewed following a near miss incident almost identical to the one that resulted in the Buncefield disaster, the High Court heard.
The court was told that in 2003 a tank overfilled when alarms failed to sound because a gauge had stuck - exactly what happened in the 2005 blast.
A report on in the incident was sent to Total's headquarters but staff 'heard nothing back', the cou
rt was told.
The court heard from the site's operations manager and safety advisor that there was no proper planning to calculate how long it would take to fill a tank and that staff relied on alarms to know when a tank was full.
In the 2003 incident it was only an automatic final cut-out switch that prevented a spill.
Jonathan Tonks, operations manager and terminal safety advisor for Total from 2001 until August 2005, said from the witness box that he was the lead investigator into the incident and produced a report.
"We sent the report to Watford (Total's UK headquarters] but heard nothing back," he told the court.
Jonathan Sumption QC, acting for Chevron, said: "Did it not occur to you that there should be a firmly established procedure to ensure you were not critically dependent on alarms to know when a tank was full?"
Referring to the report he said: "It's quite clear that you recognised that the procedures for filling tanks at Buncefield were inadequate because they did not deal with the planning, monitoring or stopping of filling operations."
Mr Tonks replied: "I can't remember - there are other possibilities."
Mr Sumption said: "Was any action taken to change procedures in light of this incident?"
Mr Tonks said: "Not that I'm aware of."
He added: "It was generally accepted we had sticking gauges but it was not a serious issue."
In response to questions about the lack of written procedures for tank filling he said: "The instructions in place at the time were deemed sufficient.
"Due to the experience of the supervisors a detailed instruction was not deemed necessary because it would not be referred to on a daily basis because the supervisors knew their jobs inside out."
Total and Chevron are locked in a dispute over who was responsible for the part of the depot where the blast took place.
Residents and businesses are seeking damages of around £700million from Total and Hertfordshire Oil Storage Limited, a joint venture between Total and Chevron.
The trial continues.
