China releases draft guidelines for safety risk management in hazardous chemical production facility construction 
On Dec. 22, 2021, China’s Ministry of Emergency Management released a draft of preliminary guidelines for safety risk management in hazardous chemical production facility construction projects to solicit public comments, which will be accepted until Jan. 22, 2022. The guidelines are intended to help manage safety risks through all the processes of this type of construction projects and increase oversight of them. Here is an overview.
Scope
- The guidelines apply to new construction, remodeling and extension projects of hazardous chemical production facilities that have obtained a hazardous chemical safe production license or a hazardous chemical safe use license in accordance with the law.
- The guidelines don’t apply to construction projects for storage, assessment, mining, etc. of hazardous chemicals.
Terminology
“A hazardous chemical production construction project” (危险化学品生产建设项目) is a project of constructing chemical production facilities that produce chemicals on the Hazardous Chemical List as final products or intermediate products, in accordance with the law and with an official approval document. The 2015 version of this list contains 2,828 hazardous chemicals:
https://www.mem.gov.cn/gk/gwgg/xgxywj/wxhxp_228/201503/W020200317436190600087.pdf
Review process for projects
According to the guidelines, the review process for construction projects consists of the following steps:
- Review for market entry approval
- Review of the safety conditions of the project
- Review of the designs of safety facilities
- Construction of safety facilities
- Test production
- Inspection of completed safety facilities
- Issuance of a safe production license
The full text of the draft preliminary guidelines (in simplified Chinese) is available at
https://www.mem.gov.cn/gk/zfxxgkpt/fdzdgknr/202112/t20211222_405416.shtml
