Recently, the State Administration of Market Supervision and Administration (State Standardization Administration) approved the release of GB 30871-2022 "Safety Code for Special Operations of Hazardous Chemical Enterprises" (hereinafter referred to as "Code"), which will be officially implemented from October 1, 2022. The Code is applicable to enterprises producing and operating (with storage) hazardous chemicals, chemical and pharmaceutical enterprises. The scope of operation is not only limited to the inspection and maintenance process, but extended to the whole process of production and operation of enterprises.
The revision and implementation of the Code will strengthen the control of major risks in the whole process of special operations, implement the main responsibility of enterprises for safe production, and effectively prevent and curb the occurrence of major production safety accidents.
Special operations have become the "hardest hit" areas for accidents
The risk of special operations, such as fire work and restricted space work, in hazardous chemical enterprises is high, and accidents are prone to occur and frequent, easily leading to personal injuries or equipment damage and causing serious accident consequences. According to statistics, about more than 40% of chemical production safety accidents are related to special operations. Special operations have become the "hardest hit" area for production safety accidents in chemical enterprises in China, and are also a key and difficult area for safety supervision.
The daily inspection of the implementation of the special operation management system and the analysis of the causes of accidents show that there are still some shortcomings in the identification and control of risks in the management of special operations, especially in the management of fire and restricted space operations, and that the safety measures stipulated in the current standards do not meet the requirements of safe operations, and some of the provisions are not strong enough. There are some deviations and misunderstandings, it is necessary to further clarify and improve the risk control requirements in the existing standards.
The main purpose of this revision is to highlight the key aspects of fire moving and restricted space operations with high safety risks, clarify the scope of special fire moving, specify the requirements for video images to be collected for special fire moving, continuous gas concentration detection for restricted space operations, and training and certification for supervisory personnel, and further optimise and refine the management of operation tickets. At the same time, according to the requirements of the "Mandatory National Standards Management Approach", the revised technical requirements were adjusted from some of the original mandatory provisions to all mandatory.
Strengthening the requirements for risk control during operations
The Code strengthens the risk control requirements for special operational processes.
First, to strengthen the implementation of the main responsibility of enterprise safety production. The Code specifies that the safety briefing before the operation is the due responsibility of the production and operation unit, which must be organized by the production and operation unit to the operation unit or contractor to carry out adequate operation risks and safety measures of the briefing.
Secondly, the role of the guardian is further emphasised. In response to the current situation where some enterprises ignore the role of guardians of special operations, and arbitrarily arrange personnel to assume the heavy responsibility of guardians, there is a blind rescue in case of sudden danger, expanding the consequences of accidents, the new standard specifies the guardian's guardianship duties by clarifying the guardian, stipulating that "guardians must be qualified by training and assessment, wear a clear logo, with a training certificate to work, guardianship should not leave the site without permission during the guardianship period The new standard clarifies the guardian's guardianship duties by stipulating that "the guardian must be trained and qualified, wear clear identification and hold a training certificate, and should not leave the work site without permission during guardianship and should not be engaged in anything unrelated to guardianship".
Thirdly, it is stipulated that "energy isolation" must be done before the implementation of special operations. Chemical production involves chemical energy, thermal energy, electrical energy and other energy, production safety accidents are mostly caused by the accidental release of energy. Therefore, good energy isolation before special operations can effectively prevent the occurrence of mass fatalities and injuries during special operations. At the same time, the Code also clearly stipulates that "when operating with fire, the equipment, facilities and pipelines shall not be isolated from the production system by means of a water seal or by merely closing the valve instead of a blind", also to prevent the failure of energy isolation.
Fourthly, some of the requirements of the current standard on the management of operation tickets have been adjusted to the text as mandatory provisions, requiring enterprises to strictly implement them. For example, the "safety operation ticket shall be reapplied when the content of the operation is changed, the scope of the operation is expanded, the operation location is transferred or the validity period of the operation ticket is exceeded" in the appendix of the existing standard has been adjusted to the main text of the new standard as a mandatory clause.
Fifthly, the Code clarifies the requirement that the same operation involves different types of special operations, and that the relevant operation tickets must be handled separately. This is also a provision made from the perspective of risk control, and requires enterprises to implement the most stringent measures in various operation tickets.
Strengthened safety risk control for fire-fighting operations
Firstly, the scope of management of fire-activated operations has been expanded. By redefining the term "flammable and explosive premises" in the current standard to "fire and explosion hazardous premises", it is differentiated from the commonly referred to "flammable and explosive premises". Instead of premises requiring enhanced fire operations, which are classified as Class A and B areas according to the fire risk classification of GB 50016-2014 Code of Practice for Fire Protection in Building Design (2018 Edition) and GB 50074-2014 Code of Practice for the Design of Petroleum Depots, the term is changed to " can form explosive mixtures with the air of gases, vapours, dust and other media environment and in high temperature, heat, friction, impact, spontaneous combustion and other circumstances may cause fire, explosion places", and the "use of sandblasting machine operations in the no-fire zone" into the definition of the scope of moving fire operations.
The second is to improve the management requirements for special fires. The Code will be "in the fire and explosion hazard in the operating state of the production equipment, pipelines,
Storage Tanks, containers and other parts of the moving fire operations (including the pressure does not replace the moving fire operations); there are flammable and explosive media of major hazards within the tank firewall moving fire operations" is classified as the scope of the special moving fire operations, and put forward the The special fires should be continuous detection of gas concentrations and the acquisition of the whole process of operational imaging requirements.
Thirdly, strict requirements have been introduced for temporary electrical work involved in the implementation of fire fighting operations. It is stipulated that "in the operation of fire and explosion hazardous production equipment, tank areas and places with fire and explosion hazards do need to be connected to temporary power supply, in accordance with the requirements of the firing operation, the surrounding environment should be tested and analysed for combustible gases", mainly to prevent electrical sparks may cause fire and explosion accidents in the area.
Fourthly, it emphasises the need to start fires on the external walls of pipelines, tanks, towers and other equipment to detect the gas content within the equipment.
Fifth, the fire in the larger equipment, gas detection sampling, in addition to the requirements from the upper, middle and lower parts of the equipment sampling, but also increased the requirements from the left, middle and right parts of the equipment sampling, this requirement is to more accurately identify the safety conditions of the fire within the equipment.
Improving safety measures for confined space operations
The first is that the restricted space guardians must be supervised outside the restricted space, and must check the work apparatus used by the personnel entering the restricted space, in order to prevent the workers from carrying non-explosion-proof work apparatus into the restricted space and leading to a repeat of the "5-12" accident of a petrochemical company in Shanghai. The second is to address the dynamic and changing nature of risk.
Secondly, in order to ensure the safety of workers in confined spaces, the requirements for continuous monitoring of flammable gases, toxic gases and oxygen levels in confined spaces have been introduced to address the dynamic and changing nature of risk.
Thirdly, the standard for the qualifying concentration of oxygen in confined spaces has been adjusted to take into account the need to ensure the safety of operators on the one hand, and to maintain uniformity with other existing standards on the other.
Source: Reprint
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