Resolution:
A "lock" was held on a database procedure that was being used by BW. The procedure was invalidated by a DDL (delete and add a partition to a table) and the BW process would not allow the procedure to be recompiled by the next process to try and use the procedure. Setting the JDBC option EnableCancelTimeout=true allowed the BW process holding the "lock" to exit and the next process to recompile the procedure.

eg.   jdbc:tibcosoftwareinc:oracle://&lthost>:&ltport#>SID=&ltdb_instancename>EnableCancelTimeout=true

This applies to JDBC driver bundled with TRA 5.4 and higher (and possibly lower).