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HELP WITH READING COMPLIANCE • REGULATIONS ARE COMPLEX BY NECESSITY BUT, SAYS CEFIC’S SABINE SCHULTES, THERE IS AN OPPORTUNITY TO MAKE THEM SIMPLER AND EASIER TO UNDERSTAND IT IS OFTEN SAID that, if four dangerous goods experts are seated around a table and given a question on the transport regulations, they will come up with four different answers, each of which is justifiable, if not totally correct. But put four inexperienced people around a table and ask them the same question, and they will struggle to come up with an answer at all. The regulations that govern the transport of dangerous goods are of necessity very complex. They also vary from place to place and from mode to mode. They have to cover an enormous range of products and possible means of containment and transport,
while also reflecting local conditions and the expectations of societies and governments. That the complexity of the regulations can be a barrier to understanding has long been recognised, although it has proven difficult to overcome, since they are perforce written in a language and organised in a way that can provide a basis for legislation and for enforcement. Moreover, even if the regulations themselves can be understood, there may not be total clarity over the intent of the various provisions and, if not carefully worded, they may be open to different interpretation in different territories.
Speaking at the TT Club’s webinar on risk mitigation in the tank container sector, held online this past 25 November, Sabine Schultes, senior manager for transport and logistics safety at the European Chemical Industry Council (Cefic), urged the regulators – with the help of industry – to embark on a drive for simplification. Her call may come at an appropriate time, since the UN Sub-committee of Experts on the Transport of Dangerous Goods, which draws up the UN Model Regulations that provide a framework for all other regulatory regimes, has hinted that it will be looking at this very problem. ACCIDENT AND RESPONSE Schultes’ presentation looked in particular at the July 2012 explosion and fire aboard the container vessel MSC Flaminia in the Atlantic Ocean and the regulatory changes that it prompted. After extensive investigation, it had been determined that the explosion occurred in two tank containers carrying divinyl benzene, stowed in the hold of the ship. Those tanks had been left on the quayside in New Orleans for ten days, in hot weather, before loading onto the ship and had then been stowed near the ship’s heated bunker tanks. It is thought that those conditions led to the early expiry of the inhibitor in the cargo, allowing it to polymerise in an exothermic reaction that led to a leak of product and then to the explosion and fire. In the wake of that event, the regulators introduced new provisions for the carriage of polymerising substances, found in the International Maritime Dangerous Goods (IMDG) Code in special provision 386 and section 7.3.7. These were designed to help ocean carriers prepare better for the risks associated with carrying those substances that require stabilisation by means of chemical inhibitors and/or temperature control. This was an obvious solution, Schultes said, but it has raised problems and questions.
THE MSC FLAMINIA FIRE AND EXPLOSION LED TO NEW REGULATIONS FOR THE CARRIAGE OF POLYMERISING CARGOES BUT THESE RELY ON ALL PARTIES IN THE SUPPLY CHAIN BEING AWARE OF THE RISKS AT ALL TIMES AND ARE FAR FROM EASY TO COMPLY WITH
HCB MONTHLY |JANUARY 2022
