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This year has seen 12 severe accidents (causing ≥ 3 fatalities) associated with hazardous chemicals, 5 of which took place in industrial parks and 4 in provinces earmarked for enhanced safety supervision. In light of the graveness of the situation, during REACH24h’s Chemical Regulatory Annual Conference 2015, Deputy Inspector Kaijian NIU of Division III, State Administration of Work Safety (SAWS) outlined the government’s efforts to tackle the situation and improve the safety of hazchem management in China.
Safety management of hazchems requires cross-sector coordination and the cooperation of numerous governmental departments. Division III of SAWS, the division specifically responsible for supervision of hazchems, fireworks and firecrackers, is assigned 5 major tasks in accordance with Decree 591, namely:
Coordinating general affairs of hazchem management
Organizing the formulation and adjustment of the HazChem Inventory
Carrying out safety inspection of new construction and expansion of hazchem enterprises
Licensing of hazchem manufacturers, operators and users
Hazchem registration
Incomplete statistics in 2014 shows China has more than 20,000 enterprises manufacturing hazchems, 260,000 operating hazchems and countless using hazchem for production, with a total of more than 9 million operational enterprises. China’s plan to establish 7 major petrochemical production bases (see note) was approved at the May 7th executive meeting of State Council so we can expect this number to increase significantly in the coming years.
*Note: The 7 major petrochemical production bases will be built in Shanghai, Dalian, Zhejiang Province, Fujian Province, Guangdong Province, Jiangsu Province, and Hebei Province. The annual oil refining capacity will reach tens of million tons, annual ethylene production will reach million tons, and integration of aromatic hydrocarbons and ethylene production will be realized.
In line with State Council’s call for streamlining administration, SAWS proposes to exempt hazchem operators without warehouses from licensing in the future revision of Decree 591.
In addition, Inspector NIU clarifies that the term “using hazchems” in the context of Decree 591 and its subordinate administrative measures specially refers to using hazchems to manufacture chemical products. Therefore, using hazchems for disinfection, detergents, lubrication, generating hydraulic pressure, etc. is not subject to licensing or hazchem registration.
SAWS next step will be completing the regulatory system for physical hazard identification of chemicals in accordance with SAWS Order 60 which will function in conjunction with hazchem registration to collect hazard and exposure information to guide the reasonable adjustment of the Inventory of Hazardous Chemicals.
