Frequent accidents such as leakage of liquid ammonia and exposure management gaps need to be filled to secure the first domestic ammonia safety standard

June 23, 2018

On the 20th, Liu Jinying, deputy director of the Shanxi Provincial Bureau of Safety Production Supervision, told reporters in an interview with the reporter that the safety and quality standards for synthetic ammonia production companies issued by the province had recently been announced. This is the first safety and quality management standard for China's ammonia industry. Its implementation will help increase the safety threshold for entering the industry and effectively prevent accidents.
It is understood that the safety management of ammonia companies is the top priority for hazardous chemicals management in China. For more than a decade, our country's synthetic ammonia plant has undergone many iterations of transformation of raw material routes and energy-saving reforms. Due to the constraints of equipment technology maturity and capital, the safety and quality level of synthetic ammonia has not been improved after transformation. Because of the small and scattered enterprises and the weakening of industry management in recent years, the safety production management of enterprises has declined. There are many hidden safety hazards in the production, packaging, storage, transportation, sales and other aspects of the company. Liquid ammonia leakage and other accidents occur from time to time. However, in China, there has been no systematic and specialized safety management standard for the ammonia industry. There are 55 ammonia producers, with an annual production capacity of 3.8 million tons, and Shanxi Province, which ranks among the top ten in terms of output, is the province's leading company. It has taken the lead in promulgating this safety standard, and has also provided references for other provinces and cities.
According to reports, the "Standard" and its evaluation and scoring methods are based on the integration and absorption of relatively fragmented safety management systems of production units, and are based on the country's 50 safety production laws, regulations, standards and industry regulations (procedures). Into the. It is applicable to enterprises that use coal as raw materials, various process technologies to produce synthetic ammonia, as well as ammonia processing equipment such as urea, nitric acid, ammonium nitrate, and carbon ammonium, and methanol (alcohol, methanol, and monoalcohol) production equipment. Other hazardous chemical manufacturers can refer to the implementation. The "Standard" includes the two parts of 'General' and 'Single Item'. There are 25 major assessment items, including safety management agencies and staffing, process technology and operating procedures, qualifications of practitioners, accident management and so on. The single standard lists four production units for nitric acid, ammonium nitrate, ammonium bicarbonate and urea, and five methanol tank farms. It mainly sets standards for the special requirements of installations or tank safety facilities.
According to statistics, in 2004 China's annual production capacity of synthetic ammonia has reached 42.22 million tons. It is expected that the national output of synthetic ammonia may exceed 46 million tons this year. At present, there are more than 570 synthetic ammonia producers in China, with large, medium and small enterprises accounting for 21%, 35% and 44% respectively.