Alkali BulletinAlkali Bulletin(For Restricted Circulation) September 2018Volume XL No. 09

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Dear Reader,

The 41st Annual General Meeting (AGM) of AMAI was held in September 2018. The AGM unanimously elected Mr. Jayantibhai Patel, Chairman & Managing Director of Meghmani Finechem Ltd. as President and Mr. E.R. Raj Narayanan, Group Executive President & SBU Head for Chlor-alkali and VFY businesses in Aditya Birla Group as Vice President. Mr. Jayantibhai Patel and Mr. Raj Narayanan are both chemical engineers with rich and vast experience.

Mr. Jayantibhai Patel took over as President from Mr. Anil Kumar who held the office for two consecutive years. Mr. Anil Kumar’s tenure was eventful with the industry recording significant achievements. The most important victory for the industry was the government’s notification on caustic soda standards (issued in April 2018), mandating the use of the BIS mark across the industry and for all imports. Among other achievements are the successful conduct of an international conference on chloro-chemicals in March 2017 and the Association crossing the milestone of training 2,000 persons on safe handling of Chlorine.

The unprecedented rainfall and floods last month created havoc in Kerala. There were casualties and widespread destruction with thousands rendered homeless. The industry came forward, supplementing the efforts of the government in providing relief and rehabilitation to those affected. TCCL and DCW were among the Members who supplied chlorine and chloro-chemicals which helped contain the outbreak of water-borne diseases. The Directorate of Health Services, Kerala circulated a guideline note on post-flood recovery that included ‘super-chlorination’ of wells, tanks and underground sumps, and use of chlorine to provide drinking water. The government distributed over 6 crore chlorine tablets and 60 MT of SBP. People were also trained to make disinfectant solutions for cleaning floor, walls, ceiling, etc. It was Chlorine that once again came to the rescue.

AMAI instituted the National Water Chlorination Day which is observed on 20th September every year. The day is observed to highlight the role of chlorine in improving access to safe drinking water. This issue carries a report on the programme organised by The Andhra Sugars Ltd.

A biography on Mr. BL Shah, Past President of AMAI was released under the aegis of the Aditya Birla Group on 8th September 2018. Mr. Shah was President of AMAI from 1983 to 1985. The Bhopal gas tragedy of 1984 saw the Association adopt and implement a “Code of Safety” for the chlor-alkali industry under his leadership. We carry a write-up on the event and a glimpse of Mr. Shah’s personality.

The Association has been monitoring chlorine-related incidents and preparing reports that serve as learnings. Every report gives a description of the incident, the action taken, a root cause analysis and recommendations to prevent its recurrence. We have so far published 100 reports and plan to publish these in a compendium for the industry. This issue carries the 101st Incident Report.

K. Srinivasan Secretary General

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I. ARTICLES & FEATURES

Enhancing Energy Efficiency through Perform, Achieve & Trade (PAT) – Outcome of PAT 2 Cycle I and Way Forward - Harjeet Kaur Anand, Joint Director (Tech.), AMAI

Chlorine – Toxic, but Surprisingly Useful 5

Biography on Mr. B.L. Shah, Past President of AMAI 8

Salt: A possible constraint to growth of Indian chlor-alkali industry? – Ravi Raghavan, 9 Editor, Chemical Weekly

There is no competition between Renewable and Thermal – Excerpts from an interview 11 of Shri R.K. Singh, Ministry of State (IC) for Power and New & Renewable Energy

Reform Outcomes – Fuel and Electricity Distribution holding back the Power Sector 13

Training Programme on “Safety in Handling and Use of Chlorine” - M.B. PATEL, DGM 16 (Safety, Env. & Fire), Gujarat Alkalies and Chemicals Limited, Dahej

Report of Evacuation Drill at Birla Public School - Babji Chaudhary (EHS Dept), Grasim 18 Industries Ltd. (Unit-Century Rayon) Chemical Plant

The Andhra Sugars Limited celebrates 7th National Water Chlorination Day 2018 20

26th Training Workshop on “Safe Handling of Chlorine” – Harisaran Das, Joint Director (SHE), AMAI 21

2nd Workshop on 3D Dispersion Modeling and Sensor Mapping for Chlor-Alkali Industry 22

Incident Report No.101: Leakage of Chlorine from Valve of the Chlorine Neutralization System 24

Incident Report No.102: Chlorine Emission from a Chlorine Liquefier 25

Beacon-Messages for Manufacturing Personnel 26

II. NEWS DIGESTGeneral

Effects of pollution 29

The economics of RCEP and potential outcomes for India (Opinion) 29

India again defers tit-for-tat tariffs against US goods 30

Goods export up 19% in August at $27.84 billion 30

PMO asks agencies to increase usage of fly ash by 10 times 31

Bilateral trade with India can grow manifold: Mexican envoy 31

India can replace US exports to China amid trade war, finds study 31

Chlorine Emergency Response Network Toll free no. 1800-11-1735

CONTENTS

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Shale gas driving US chemcical industry investments 32

India’s industrial wastewater management sector investments on the rise’ 32

Chemicals and Petrochemicals

Effects of Chemical Pollution 32

Dahej PCPIR expansion underway 33

BPCL to invest Rs. 40,000 crore in new petrochemicals plant 33

Manali Petro starts making Notedome PU 33

Chemical net could be key to capturing pure hydrogen 33

Member Units

Tamilnadu Petroproducts returns to profit mode 34

III. NOTIFICATIONS/PRESS RELEASES MEMORANDAPress Release - 24th RCEP Auckland Round from 17-24 October 2018 35

IV. UPCOMING SEMINARS/CONFERENCES/WORKSHOPSArgus Media to organise Chlor-Alkali Conference 2019 on 29-30 January 2019 in London - 36 AMAI is Supporting Partner

Alkali Bulletin September, 2018

Disclaimer: Information published in this magazine is reproduced from various sources. Every effort is made to minimize errors while reproducing for publication in Alkali Bulletin. However, readers are requested to verify and make appropriate enquiries and satisfy themselves about the veracity of information published in this magazine before use. The publisher or AMAI will not be responsible for decisions taken by readers based on information published in Alkali Bulletin.

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Be observant as you do your job. Learn how your plant normally behaves, and look for differences.

If you observe any kind of unusual behavior in your plant, report it to supervision, management, and technical staff. Work with them to understand what has caused the unusual behavior. Understand if the behavior is a symptom of a hazardous condition or a change in the integrity status of your equipment.

Read the December 2015 Beacon(www.sache.org) for more examples of hazardous incidents which were avoided because somebody reported an abnormal situation, and some examples of unusual things to look for as you work.

Did you know? What can you do?

This issue sponsored by

http://www.aiche.org/CCPS/Publications/Beacon/index.aspxMessages for Manufacturing Personnel

Report and investigate unusual process behavior!

www.aiche.org/ccps

September 2018

©AIChE 2018. All rights reserved. Reproduction for non-commercial, educational purposes is encouraged. However, reproduction for any commercial purpose without express written consent of AIChE is strictly prohibited. Contact us at ccps_beacon@aiche.org or 646-495-1371.

The Beacon is usually available in Afrikaans, Arabic, Catalan, Chinese, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Filipino, French, German, Greek, Gujarati, Hebrew, Hindi, Hungarian, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Marathi, Mongolian, Persian (Farsi), Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Urdu, and Vietnamese.

What if your process is acting differently?

March 2007 Beacon (www.sache.org) explains the incorrect level reading.

In another case, a batch specialty chemical process included a batch distillation step to remove a reaction by-product. This normally took about 10 hours, and the distillation was determined to be complete when the temperature at the top of the column reached a specified value. The temperature sensor failed during one batch. The column top temperature indication incorrectly reached the completion temperature in about 15 minutes. The process continued to the next step. Nobody questioned the unusual behavior. Fortunately there was no safety consequence, but the batch had to be discarded.

www.iomosaic.com

When you work in a plant, you learn a lot about how it normally behaves. You get to know how long various process steps take, how long it takes to heat up a vessel, how much heating or cooling is required for a particular step, what happens to the level in various vessels when you transfer material from one place to another, what color materials are in a sight glass, what the plant normally sounds like, what it looks like, and hundreds of other things that you see and experience as you go about your daily work.

If you observe something that appears to be different from your past experience, it is likely that there is something which has changed in your plant. It is possible that the change is hazardous.

A runaway reaction incident described in the August 2018 Beacon occurred in a batch reactor as a result of failure to agitate during reactant addition. During normal operation, the reactor always needed cooling to maintain the required temperature. The runaway batch did not need cooling, but rather required heating! Clearly there was something different, but nobody noticed or acted upon the abnormal behavior.

The 2005 Texas City refinery explosion is another example of not responding to abnormal process conditions. In this incident, a distillation column was overfilled and over-pressurized (Pictures 1 & 2). Flammable hydrocarbons were released from a stack (Picture 3), and the vapor cloud ignited. Material was being fed to the column, while nothing was being removed (Picture 4), and the level instrument indicated a decreasing column level. The level instrument had not failed, but was operating beyond its design range. The

1 2

3 4Pictures from US Chemical Safety Board video about the March 2005 Texas City incident.

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Published by ALKALI MANUFACTURERS ASSOCIATION OF INDIA3rd Floor, Pankaj Chambers, Preet Vihar Commercial Complex, Vikas Marg, Delhi 110092Ph: 011- 22432003, 22410150Email: hkanand@ama-india.org; info@ama-india.org;website: www.ama-india.org

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