30 Years Ago

A LOOK BACK AT JANUARY 1991

January 1991 had a big impact on the dangerous goods transport business. After some 15 years in preparation, new rules arrived on packaging specifications, along with the UN specification marking, designed to make it easier for cargo acceptance and enforcement personnel to see if dangerous goods packaging was up to scratch. HCB offered some useful examples of these new UN markings, along with several advertisements from packaging manufacturers eager to show that they were up to speed with the requirements.

The new provisions arrived during what HCB described as “a lean market” for packaging manufacturers, with the slowdown in client industries following the 1988/89 economic contraction, together with high inflation in some countries, putting pressure both on sales volumes and margins. Perhaps not surprisingly, then, the drum reconditioning sector was doing pretty well. HCB’s January 1991 number included news from an increasing number of companies getting involved in the business and the drive to set some standards.

HCB’s founding editor, Mike Corkhill, still at his desk, had this to say: “The enforcement authorities have nailed their colours firmly to the mast. A new dangerous goods regime is in place which will be rigorously enforced and it behoves shippers and carriers to ensure that they are familiar with the new requirements.” That may have been the case (then and now), though there is still plenty of evidence to show that some shippers are failing to discharge their responsibilities.

January also saw the arrival of Amendment 25 to the IMDG Code which, for the first time, covered marine pollutant hazards. Although Annex III of Marpol, dealing with packaged dangerous goods, had not yet received enough ratifications to enter into force, some territories had decided to go ahead and implement it in any case, not least since its requirements were already bound up in the latest revision to the IMDG Code.

Another important but upcoming change was decided by IMO’s Bulk Chemicals Sub-committee, which had met in London in October 1990. One item on its very busy schedule was agreement on provisions for vapour emissions control systems, a complex issue for maritime regulators since it involves coordination with shoreside operations. There were many technical difficulties to overcome, though thankfully OCIMF was already on the case and, it was stressed, there was at that time no intention to make the provisions mandatory. Rather, were it the case that local legislation required such controls, then the provisions developed by IMO would offer a standard to measure up to.

Elsewhere, we reported that bulk liquids storage terminals were doing fairly well, despite the slowdown in the chemical industry and the effects of the (first) Gulf War. “The desire to hoard in times of uncertainty has helped,” we said then. The same could be said for the current situation, not least since ‘uncertainty’ and ‘volatility’ are words that are featuring increasingly often in our pages.

Indeed, we have often remarked that storage terminals offer a comparatively reliable cash flow in good times and bad – which has attracted investment funds into the business – though the roundup of construction and expansion activity in the January 1991 issue did include many company names that will be unfamiliar to anyone who has joined the industry in the past five or ten years.