"This company has only completed the basic project construction, but the automation control, safety facilities and equipment, qualification verification of key positions, fire emergency and other tasks are not in place. There is no complete trial production plan, and there is no guarantee for safe production. If the conditions are met, trial production can be started, which can be said to be taking risks for the sake of profit," said a member of the ministerial-level supervision and inspection team of Emergency Management Department Hazardous Chemicals Major Hazard Source Enterprises.
In order to promote the continuous strengthening of the safety risk management and control of major hazard sources of hazardous chemicals in various regions and the precise prevention and control of major safety risks of hazardous chemicals, starting from the end of June, the Emergency Management Department dispatched 8 working groups to carry out activities on major hazard sources of hazardous chemicals in various regions. The company will carry out its first ministerial-level supervision and inspection in 2022, and simultaneously conduct a mid-term assessment of the centralized management of hazardous chemical safety risks.
html In early July, the Sixth Supervision and Inspection Team of the Emergency Management Department carried out overt and covert inspections in Guangxi. In the Liutang area of the Liucheng County Industrial Zone in Liuzhou City, the supervision and inspection team found that the safety risk prevention and control of the transfer of chemical industry in the park was not in place, and there were loopholes in the safety access control. What is particularly striking is that Yuanye Biotechnology Company, a project under construction in the park, started trial production privately without completing the demonstration of the trial production plan, which posed serious safety risks. Members of thesupervision and inspection team told Red Star News reporters that the current centralized management of hazardous chemical safety risks across the country places the prevention and control of safety risks in chemical industry transfer projects as a key rectification task. This company is not only a major hazard source enterprise, but also an industrial transfer enterprise. "There should no longer be such a blind spot."
Red Star News reporter learned that after the supervision and inspection team of the Ministry of Emergency Management discovered the hidden dangers of the above problems, it has urged local governments to order enterprises to immediately stop production and business activities, and file cases for investigation and punishment of the enterprises involved. At present, the Liuzhou City Emergency Management Department has issued an "On-site Disposal Measures Decision" to Liuzhou Yuanye Biotechnology Co., Ltd., ordering the company to suspend production and operations, stop using relevant facilities and equipment, and interview the main person in charge of the company; at the same time Conduct self-examination and self-correction again within the jurisdiction by drawing inferences from other cases.
The park ledger showed that the company was under construction, but an on-site inspection found something else.
html On the morning of July 5, the Sixth Supervision and Inspection Team of the Emergency Management Department drove to the Liutang area of Liucheng County Industrial Zone, located northwest of , Liuzhou City. It was seen in the corporate ledger of the Liutang Area Management Committee that Yuanye Biotechnology Company was "under construction", and the supervision and inspection team immediately decided to conduct an on-site inspection of this biotechnology company. Afterarrived at the scene, the person in charge of Yuanye Biotechnology Company introduced the company's situation to the inspectors and said that the company was still under construction and had not yet been put into production. However, when the supervision and inspection team members entered the company's production workshop, various signs showed that this was not the case.
The factory building of Yuanye Biotechnology Company.
In the workshop, the inspectors discovered the company's recent material picking and feeding records, as well as production operation record sheets. They found that there were crystal residues on the inner walls of the reactor and other containers in the company's production equipment, and there were packaging bags containing finished products on site.
Inspectors found packaging bags containing finished products and crystal residues in the production equipment.
Red Star News reporter saw on the workshop material picking list that on June 28th and 29th, some workers received a variety of chemical raw materials in succession. In two days, they received a total of 28.4 tons of sodium sulfite, 27.8 tons of soda ash, and 27.8 tons of soda ash. 12 tons of toluene chloride, 2,960 kilograms of lye, and methyl chloride, a hazardous chemical that is flammable, toxic and dangerous. Just looking at an operation record on July 2, there were 6 batches of production records, and 50 bags of finished products were packaged.
The recent material picking and feeding records of the company discovered by the inspectors.
A record of the company’s recent production operations found by inspectors.
inspectors told Red Star News reporters that the company uses hazardous chemicals to produce p-methylsulfonyltoluene, which involves key supervision of the alkylation process, and the methyl chloride storage tank constitutes a level four major hazard source. Judging from the on-site inspection by experts, the company reported "congenital deficiencies" in safety risk assessment and automated control, and the necessary process alarm interlocking, emergency shutdown and other functions were incomplete, and had not yet met the standard requirements for safe production.
The person in charge of the company argued that the products were subcontracted, and the inspection team found conclusive facts.
Regarding the problems discovered by the supervision and inspection team of the Ministry of Emergency Management, the person in charge of Yuanye Biotechnology Company told the Red Star News reporter that the company had not started production. "I just subcontracted the products transferred from the head office."
Regarding the material residues in the reactor and dryer , the company said that it was because the manufacturer had to debug the equipment after it was installed. "After debugging, the traces were water marks." , it is not dried, it is not material.”
The inspector pointed out: Through the sight glass of the reactor, crystal residues were found on the inner wall. Since the finished product needs to be centrifuged and dried before packaging, there are also crystals and residues on the drying body. In addition, there are bagging records hanging on the dryer, there are materials in the packaging bags for the finished products, and there are loading and unloading forklifts on site, indicating that the entire production process has been completed and may have been sold.
In addition, the supervision and inspection team also found that the academic qualifications of the main person in charge, safety management personnel and alkylation process operators of Yuanye Biotechnology Company did not meet the requirements.
It is reported that according to the "Three-Year Action Implementation Plan for Special Rectification of Hazardous Chemical Safety Safety", the main persons in charge and those in charge of production and equipment of enterprises involving "two key points and one major" (key supervision of hazardous chemicals, key supervision of chemical processes, and major hazard sources) The person in charge of technology, safety and production safety management personnel must have a college degree or above in chemistry, chemical engineering, safety and other related majors or have an intermediate or above professional title in chemical industry. Operators of production equipment and storage facilities that involve major hazard sources and focus on supervised chemical processes must have a high school degree or above or a secondary vocational education level in chemical engineering or above.
At present, the main person in charge, person in charge, safety management personnel, and alkylation process operators of Yuanye Biotechnology Company do not meet the three-year action requirements, and the company is arranging recruitment and training.
Be wary of covering up the safety risks caused by backward production capacity in the name of "new materials, new organisms, new technologies, and new energy"
Public information shows that Liuzhou Yuanye Biotechnology Company was established in August 2019, and its business scope includes biotechnology Technology promotion; production and sales of sodium p-toluenesulfinate, p-methylsulfonyltoluene, dinitro-4-methylsulfonylbenzoic acid, and fine chemical products (including MST) (projects subject to approval according to law must be approved by relevant departments) can carry out business activities). The
supervision and inspection team learned that Liuzhou Yuanye Biotechnology Company has a head office in Zhejiang and a similar project in Shandong (has been discontinued). In 2019, it set up a factory in Liuzhou . Members of the
supervision and inspection team introduced that industrial transfer is a law of economic development, and undertaking industrial transfer is an important driving force for regional economic development. In recent years, hazardous chemicals projects are accelerating their transfer from the eastern coastal areas of Jiangsu, Zhejiang, etc. to the central, western and northeastern regions.
At the same time, high-risk processes account for a large proportion of transfer projects, and the intrinsic safety level of some projects is low. Some undertaking sites have insufficient overall development and safety. In the case of mismatch in safety foundation, supervision capabilities, professional quality of personnel, etc., blindly When undertaking a transfer project, if safety risk control is not in place, a "ticking time bomb" may be planted. Some typical chemical accidents in recent years have repeatedly warned that some companies use the name of "new materials, new technologies, and new energy" to cover up the reality of backward production capacity and dangerous processes, often becoming the "hardest hit areas" for accidents and risks.
On June 16 this year, an explosion occurred at Gansu Binnong Technology Company, killing 6 people and injuring 8 people. This company was the Eastern Transfer Company, and the explosion occurred while it was still in the trial production stage. On June 21, the Ministry of Emergency Management held a national emergency video conference on hazardous chemicals safety prevention, urging all regions to strictly deal with the problem of lax control of safety risks in the transfer of chemical industries.
It is reported that starting from November 2021, the State Council Safety Commission has deployed a one-year special rectification in 21 provinces in the central, western and northeastern regions that have undertaken transfer projects. This work is also the focus of national hazardous chemical safety risks in 2022 key tasks of governance.It is required that the chemical industry park undertakes to formulate an overall plan, industrial development plan and project access conditions, accelerate the establishment and improvement of the project access management system, strictly control the incremental access threshold, and ensure the "eugenics" of the project. It is required to carry out safety design diagnosis of existing projects in the undertaking area, evaluate the "four clearings" of fine chemical enterprises' rectification tasks one by one, survive the fittest, and comprehensively improve the intrinsic safety level. All work is currently in progress.
Red Star News reporter Zhang Yanliang, Guangxi Liuzhou report
Editor Peng Jiang
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