and supporting mutually National Standards and so on, CIGIA established the group standard technical committee to promote the rapid development of CIGIA group standards. Beijing- Tianjin- Hebei Alliance will focus development of Beijing- Tianjin- Hebei region,
for example: reconstructing boilers from coal- burning to gas- burning, promotion of issuing related group standards;
13)Participation of preparation and revision of national standards and specifications and timely dynamic transfer: participation of revision of the outline of Supervision Regulations on Safety Technology for Gas Cylinder ; completion of the project approval of Specification of Application of Cylinder Electronic Tags (national standard) to promote the national cylinder electronic tag industry alliance work; active
participation of preparation and revision of related standards, laws and regulations such as those from AQSIQ, State Administration of Work Safety, Ministry of Health and so on; at the same time, strengthening the contact with the related industry committees on standardization and timely transferring information by means of CIGIA website (www.cigia.org.cn), Alliance branch website and media to more members; by combining updating the CIGIA website, timely establishment of the “Gas Safety” WeChat Official Account;
14)Active cooperation with members and promotion of new development: gas application technology development center and cylinders and media center.
3 Safety
3.1 Cylinder safety management
Mr. LI Qiang specially emphasized the cylinder safety management. Mr. LI Qiang said:
1)Rapid development of the gas industry (especially CNG and LNG) brings about us new development opportunities; at the same time, new risks may also occur. There are 4 primary issues: (1) illegal usage of cylinders and cylinders are not registered or recorded; (2) overdue inspection of cylinders or at least most of cylinders; (3) unclear coloring identification of cylinders, especially color falling of industry cylinders in companies so that we shall not know what gas filled; and (4) during the operation process of cylinders, related national standards or specifications are not be obeyed so as to cause accidents;
2)The Party Central Committee, the State Council and various local governments pay more attentions to safety work; especially Xi Jinping (the general secretary of the new Party Central Committee) presented a lot of important instructions to safety work to require “the same responsibilities for the party and government, both responsibilities for the same post and investigating and affixing the responsibility for any
personnel breaching of duty”, and managing industry and safety and business and safety at the same time for various governments. The bottom-line thought shall be intensified; especially, the human life shall be the most important. Safety shall be an insurmountable red line. Currently, any accident shall be strictly handled and any personnel breaching of duty will be fined or punished. The related criminal government management departments as well as companies shall be fined or punished;
3)Strengthening the safety consciousness and implementing the enterprise entity responsibilities: those cylinder filling and business companies shall implement national laws and regulations. As for the special equipment, laws and regulations shall be relatively sound, such as Law on Safety Special Equipment, Regulation on Safety Supervision of Special Equipments as well as related safety technical specifications and standards; despite this, we shall still carefully implement or perform all rules and laws. As for usage and registration and periodic inspection of cylinders as well as qualification certificates of filling station management personnel, qualification certificates of the filling personnel shall meet the requirements of the above standards or specifications. The sound safety management system shall be established; especially strict implementation of operation rules and regulations shall be strengthened. Guidance of safe usage of gas shall be strengthened
to customers. The traceability management shall be performed this year; and traceability of electronic tags is required to cylinders and elevators.
3.2 Filling station safety
Mr. WANG Zongxin presented thorough analysis on “filling station issues and management”, “analysis of domestic vehicle cylinder explosion accidents in recent years”, “cylinder inspection stations and issues”, “further plan of cylinder supervision work” and so on in his speech.
3.2.1 Equipment and facility issues
3.2.1.1 Permanent gas filling stations
1)Oxygen filling station: there is few vacuum equipment or no flammable gas detection warning instrument; and 2)Cylinders: identification, coloring or capping.
3.2.1.2 LPG stations
1)Some LPG stations: arbitrarily adding storage tanks or changing pipelines, there being resident houses within stations, or illegally using fire control channels; 2)No vacuum equipment for new cylinders.
3.2.1.3 Dissolved acetylene stations
1)No acetylene manifold; 2)No nitrogen circuit; and 3)High pressure dryers: no outlet safety release devices.
3.2.2 Issues of the filling station quality management system
1)Incomplete management system, being lack of related management systems such as safety supervision, accident reporting and data storage; 2) No formal quality system manager; 3)No periodic inspection to pressure pipes or pressure vessels, or no use registration to some pressure pipes or pressure vessels; 4)No periodic calibration or verification to pressure gauges, safety valves, flammable gas detection warning instruments and so on; 5)Incomplete quality records, for example: no inspection or filling records prior to or after filling cylinders, no equipment operation, maintenance and other records; 6)Incomplete daily special equipment laws and regulations, or standards; insufficient
training and study for safety management personnel, technical managers and filling/inspection personnel; 7) As for cylinder managements, ignoring management to existing cylinders in some filling stations, no requirement to customers due to the market competition influence, only controlling the quantity of recycled cylinders without checking their sources so that such companies shall not carry out inspection prior to filling cylinders, or no normal and periodic inspection to cylinders.
3.2.3 Filling issues
1)Incomplete inspection and filling recording items prior to or after filling cylinders , for example: no acetone adding record in some dissolved acetylene filling companies, or even no or incomplete cylinder number record in some companies, no signatures of filling or inspection personnel; and 2)No filling permanent gas speed control or too fast filling speed in some companies. Any filling station manager shall be the first cylinder safety manager whose responsibilities shall be of significance and who is required to be seriously stringent and strictly obey the licensing conditions and operation rules and implement various management systems during the working processes to ensure the safe operation. Accidents occur due to tiny negligence, being careless and unconcerned or fortune.
Finally, Mr. WANG Zongxin forward suggestions and ideas to cylinder supervision work: 1)Active promotion of construction of the cylinder traceability system to achieve information interconnection and interworking of the provincial cylinders; 2)To perform supervision or random inspection to cylinder inspection agencies, notification of some inspection agencies or disposal of some inspection agencies to improve the inspection work quality; 3)To urge various branches to continually perform striking or banning illegal filling activities; 4)To play the roles of the industry associations and improve the cylinder supervision level; and 5)In accordance with requirements of Beijing- Tianjin- Hebei local
standards, urging effective development of periodic inspection to cryogenic and insulated cylinders.
3.3 Influences of Tianjin “8.12” Accident to the gas industry
Mr. LIU Ning (the business manager of Tianjin Yongli Food Additives Co., Ltd.) reported the “Enlightenment Tianjin Harbor “8.12” Explosion Accident to Gas Industry”. The first and second explosions occurred at 23:34:06 and 23:34:37 of August 12, 2015 in dangerous cargo warehouses of Tianjin Ruihai Corporation located in No. 95, Jiyuan No. 2 Road, Binhai New Area, respectively, so that this accident shall lead to 165 victims, 8 missing persons and 798 casualties in hospital, and damaging 304 buildings, 12428 high quality vehicles and 7533
containers (the direct economic losses may be up to RMB 68,660,000,000 Yuan).
Mr. LIU Ning said: the gas industry characteristics are various types of dangerous chemicals and major risks; and risk characteristics of industrial gases are flammable, explosive, toxic or corrosive and they may be possibly dissolved, oxidized or polymerized. Moreover, cylinders belong to transportable pressure vessels so that they shall be possibly everywhere or in complicated application conditions without general specific supervision personnel; and they shall be more difficultly managed objectively with reference to fixed pressure vessels and accidents may more possibly occur and the accident hazards may be more serious; therefore, gas companies shall pay special attentions
to safety. In view of “8.12” Accident, the gas industry are enlightened as follows: 1)Dangerous gas and other “very dangerous” companies shall certainly be in the specific industrial parks rather than in any town. Prior occurrence of “8.12” Accident, relocation of chemical companies lasts for long time; on the other hand, relocation of dangerous chemicals companies shall be in a new merging stage in various regions along with occurrence of &ld