The “Storm” of Jiangsu Chemical Industry Rehabilitation

Recently, Jiangsu Province held a special meeting to arrange the “Jiangsu Province Chemical Industry Safety and Environmental Protection Improvement Plan” issued by the provincial Party committee office. At the meeting, the provincial leaders made a clear statement that they should resolve to solve the problem of chemical safety and environmental protection from the source, comprehensively and thoroughly rectify the low-end backward chemical production capacity, and substantially reduce the potential risks of safety and environmental protection.
The plan puts forward such severe measures as “promoting regulation and upgrading according to law and regulations”, “reducing the number of chemical production enterprises along the Yangtze River” and “reducing the number of chemical production enterprises in environmentally sensitive areas”, which means that a large number of chemical parks and chemical enterprises in Jiangsu will face the fate of renovation, relocation and closure in the next two years.
It stipulates that all chemical production enterprises within 1 kilometer on both sides of the main and tributary of the Yangtze River and outside the park shall withdraw or relocate in principle by the end of 2020, and that the construction and expansion of chemical industrial parks and chemical projects shall be strictly prohibited. Safety risk and environmental risk assessment should be carried out one by one for those enterprises that can not be relocated, and “one enterprise, one policy” should be adopted to improve and upgrade them.
The main contents of the implementation of “reduction” are: reducing the number of chemical production enterprises along the river, in environmentally sensitive areas and outside the park; reducing the number of chemical industrial parks (concentration areas); the plan specifies the exit schedule of enterprises, but does not mention specific quantitative hard indicators.
“To reduce the stock, we should actively promote the transformation of chemical enterprises.” Chen Zhipeng, deputy director of the Department of Ecological Environment of Jiangsu Province, said that according to the relevant implementation requirements, chemical enterprises in 16 situations, such as unstable discharge of sewage, long-term abnormal operation of environmental protection facilities and still failing to meet the required time limit for rectification, should be shut down in accordance with the relevant regulations by the end of 2020.
Ma Qiulin, vice governor of Jiangsu Province, also emphasized that while closing down according to law at the end, transformation and upgrading should be promoted at the source to achieve an effective combination of end-management and source-management. “We should always focus on accuracy, adhere to the guidance of classification, highlight key points, and promote the improvement of chemical industry. We must adhere to the “chess game” of the whole province, adjust the industrial structure according to the carrying capacity of different resources and environments in different places, never do gradient transfer, let alone simply “one size fits all”. Ma Qiulin said.
Chemical industry parking is the main development direction in the future, and the comprehensive renovation of the park has become the focus of this industrial upgrading program. “We should further adjust and optimize the layout of the industry and crack the neighbourhood avoidance effect from the source.” Xie Zhicheng, director of Jiangsu Provincial Bureau of Industry and Information Technology, said.
According to Xie Zhicheng, at the specific implementation level, the industrial scale, technical level and infrastructure of 50 chemical parks (concentrated areas) in the province will be comprehensively evaluated, and the improvement measures will be clearly defined one by one. For Lianyungang Petrochemical Industry Base being built, we should strictly control the entrance of enterprises and strive to build an internationally competitive * petrochemical industry base.
For the parks with high degree of industrial correlation and large-scale industrial chain, the development and construction mode of “five integrations” should be targeted, and the closed management should be realized. For small-scale and initially specialized parks, close management should be achieved on schedule by relying on projects with strong upstream and downstream linkages, high technology level and green safety control of leading enterprises. For parks with unclear industrial chains and simple clusters of hazardous chemicals enterprises, it is necessary to speed up capacity relief and total volume reduction, strengthen monitoring and supervision, cancel the orientation of chemical industrial parks (concentration areas) if they fail to meet the requirements, and gradually eliminate enterprises that fail to meet the standards and are not standardized according to law.
In the implementation of specific measures for park enterprises, each enterprise should be evaluated and put forward disposal opinions. Enterprises with no industrial chain links, great potential safety and environmental protection risks in the park should be closed and withdrawn by the end of 2020 according to law.
In order to promote the effectiveness of the scheme, Jiangsu Province will also strictly enforce the entry threshold in terms of planning, safety, environmental protection, technology, investment and land use. It will promote the upgrading of chemical industry in Jiangsu Province by developing high-standard chemical projects with good market prospects, high technological level, advanced safety and environmental protection, and strong industrial driving force.
“Implementing the responsibility system of safety and environmental protection * It is important to fully implement the main responsibility of enterprises and the post responsibility of employees.” Yang Xufeng, deputy director of Jiangsu Emergency Management Department, said that legal representatives of enterprises, the first major shareholders, technical leaders and safety managers must participate in the training and assessment of their professional competence and take up positions with certificates. Operators of chemical production plants and employees of primary and secondary major hazard storage facilities must have a secondary school education or higher. No witnessless person may be employed in special operation posts.
The Plan also calls for the strengthening of comprehensive supervision by park management agencies and special supervision by functional departments. Establish safety management and environmental protection organizations in the park, purchase services and implement third-party professional supervision; use credit platform to implement the “blacklist” system, and implement the “one vote veto” system for those enterprises with “previous record” and the main responsible persons of enterprises.
At the same time, Jiangsu will focus on improving supporting policies. For example, the provincial finance arranges subsidies to cities and counties according to the number of closed enterprises and other factors, giving priority to the diversion of workers and staff placement; in areas with a high proportion of chemical industry and a greater impact on tax revenue, provincial finance gives appropriate subsidies, etc.