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30 YEARS AGO A LOOK BACK AT JULY 1991 The July 1991 issue of HCB had a big focus on tank containers and in particular on the inchoate market for this comparatively young concept in the US. Editor Mike Corkhill pointed out that, whereas in Europe, where the “lay of the land (and water)” offers an appealing market for intermodal tanks, the entrenched forces of the US railroads and truckers had conspired to delay the development of a domestic tank container (that is, ‘ISO tank’) sector in North America. While some efforts had been made to expand the use of tank containers, notably by Union Pacific with its BulkTainer service, part of the problem was encouraging drayage companies to use suitable chassis, as well as the lack of dedicated regulation. However, the publication of HM-181 in December 1990, designed to bring the US Hazardous Materials Regulations closer into line with international provisions, was expected to help in that direction, while both Stolt and Hoyer had recently announced their commitment to the use of tank containers for US domestic transport(ation) and Stolt had formed an intermodal partnership with Chemical Leaman Tank Lines. Those figures were borne out by HCB’s annual fleet review of tank container operators, with Hoyer (4,640 tanks) and Stolt (4,350) being far and away the largest in the business; only Transport Coulier, GCA Trans,
the latest – in June 1991 at the Albright & Wilson Americas plant in Charleston, South Carolina – having killed six workers and injured several more. Indeed, the New York Times reported that 79 people had died and nearly 1,000 been injured in the 12 worst chemical and refining incidents in the previous four years, prompting investigations to determine if there were any common causes. At the time, investigation work was carried out by several different agencies, often with the results of those investigations being kept confidential over legal concerns. In 1990, the new Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) had been established following amendments to the Clean Air Act but a year later Congress had still not appointed any members of the Board nor approved any funding. The petrochemical industry was taking its own steps, with the US Chemical Manufacturers Association (CMA) having formed a Carrier Assessment Council to develop a third-party assessment system to periodically evaluate carriers for safety fitness and regulatory compliance. This was intended to be a cost-effective means of implementing the Distribution Code under CMA’s Responsible Care programme, rather than to address the hazards so apparent in the chemical processing sector.
Rinnen, VTG and Wim Vos – all European – having more than 1,000 tanks under their control. For the sake of comparison, in ITCO’s annual fleet survey this year, Stolt’s number was put at 40,330 and Hoyer – having been overtaken in the ranks by the now Chinese-owned NewPort Tank Container – at 35,500. Meanwhile, concerns were growing about safety standards in US petrochemical manufacturing facilities after a series of fatal incidents,
The move followed on from similar initiatives in Europe, where the European Council of Chemical Industry Federations (Cefic) and the European Petrochemical Association (EPCA) had recently been instrumental in setting up the International Chemical Environment (ICE) programme, which these days is in effect through the Safety and Quality Assessment for Sustainability (SQAS) and Chemical Distribution Institute (CDI) audit programmes.
HCB MONTHLY | JULY/AUGUST 2021
