On September 26, 2020 Association “RusChlor” is going to celebrate the fifteenth anniversary of its official coming into being.
The concept of RusChlor had been maturing for quite long. Of course it was drawn on the foreign experience. Suffice it to say in this connection that US Association of the Chlor-Alkali Industry "Chlorine Institute" that now counts as many as 260 member-companies worldwide was begun as long ago as in 1934. In 1956 there also came into business European Association of the Chlor-Alkaly Industry “Euro Chlor” that now unites virtually all the European chlor-alkali facilities in Europe. The analogous chlor-alkali associations both national and regional function nowadays all over the world from Japan through Brazil and Mexico. The dissolution of the former USSR triggered off the cancellation of the sectoral ministries, specialized research institutes, and scientific schools, which has prompted the need for an industry-wide unifying put into practice under some other and modern-day principles. Since its creation RusChlor has been striving to be an embodiment of this very idea.
Therefore, seven most prominent chlor-alkali facilities of the Russian federation of that time have made up for the founders of RusChlor. Here they are: Volgograd JSC “Kaustik”, Sterlitamak JSC “Bashkir Soda Company", Sayansk JSC “Sayanskkhimplast", Kemerovo LLC “Khimprom”, Novomoskovsk LLC “Novomoskovskij Khlor”, Usol’e LLC “Usol’ekhimprom”, and Moscow LLC “National Chlorine Safety Centre”.
These seven facilities had also made up for the RusChlor's first full member-companies that have been since joined by all the other Russian chlor-alkaly producers.
Association “RusChlor” currently counts 16 full member-companies and 25 associate ones.
It is worth noticing here that all the Russian manufacturers of chlorine, caustic soda, sodium hypochlorite, and/ or any other chlorine derivative are currently among the RusChlor’s full member-companies.
The RusChlor’s associate member-companies are in their turn made up of the leading design, engineering companies, equipment makers, producers of instruments, means of providing the safety, and protection both foreign and domestic. They all are currently providing the Russian chlor-alkali industry with their core-products and services.
Ecology, Safety, and Energy-effectiveness collectively set up the Top Priority for RusChlor
Historically, Association “RusChlor” was aimed to advocate the various support for the industry’s manufacturers in the first place. At the beginning the integration into an industry-wide trade association did not proceed smoothly for the Russian chlor-alkali industry because a few production facilities had not been very hot on the common cause for some time as they wanted to protect their interests on their own each. With the passage of time though, it has become absolutely clear to everybody that there are such the acute problems faced by the industry as a whole in the Russian Federation that can be mitigated not even speaking of solved by the industry’s facilities’ efforts only on the condition that all those facilities should act as one. This work comprises as one of its key elements lobbying the government, its ministries, and bodies for the industry’s interests, which includes among other important things lobbying for the new normative-technical documents so that they should be maximally cozy to the industry, cooperating with the Russia’s main regulator Federal Service for Ecological, Technological, and Nuclear Supervision of the Russian Federation (ROSTEKHNADZOR), Federal Anti-Monopoly Servise, and the like.
In so doing RusChlor sets up its priorities in such a way as to facilitate at the maximal possible extent the improvements of the installed green and energy conservation technologies as well as the introduction into practice of the new ones of the kind. A proven way to solve the RusChlor’s aforementioned priority tasks is to introduce into the industry managerial practice the principles of so called “Best Available Techniques” (BAT). Going along these lines RusChlor is vigorously cooperating with both the industry and BAT Bureau in developing the detailed suggestions about introduction of particular technologies into the informational-and-technical reference handbook of the Best Available Techniques codenamed ITS 34-2017 and entitled “Production of Other Basic Inorganic Chemicals”. In so doing RusChlor aims at allowing the industrial facilities to comply with the current legislation without breaking the ecologists’ requirements.
In addition to the abovesaid RusChlor sets before itself the task to develop such a Unified Specialized Handbook that should feature all the efficient technologies that are being in use at the domestic industrial plants. The first edition of the handbook was sequentially officially issued and dispatched to the industrial facilities earlier this year.
One of the RusChlor’s lines of activity involves a constant in time cooperation of it with ROSTEKHNADZOR in bettering the technical requirements imposed on the production facilities. RusChlor has developed the latest version of freshly amended "National Standards and Safety Rules for Production of Chlorine and Chlorine-containing Substances”. The draft piece of legislation has been duly submitted to the Ministry of Justice of the Russian Federation in the course of application for the official registration and is still waiting for that there.
One of the acute problems currently faced by most Russian chlor-alkali production facility is linked to provision for safety and optimization of the transportation processes for chlorine and its derivatives. The point is that there have been officially published a few Decrees of the Government in the Russian Federation recently that collectively effectively prohibit both any works on reconstruction the existing chlorine railway tank cars and any extension of the tank car’s legal operational lifetime even based on the results of the tank car’s expert examination however sophisticated. This is why RusChlor spares no efforts in a desperate attempt to solve in cooperation with the competent governmental agencies and machine builders the aforesaid problem in such a way as to quickly provide the industry’s production facilities with the modern-day, reliable, movable tare.
In providing the support to the chlor-alkali industry’s production facilities Association “RusChlor” has been analyzing since 2012 at recommendation having been made by ROSTEKHNADZOR the market of the instruments and equipment designed for the use in the said industry so that the analysis should be followed by drawing up the certificates under the RusChlor’s voluntary certification system "RusChlorCert" that has been duly registered with Federal Agency on Technical Regulation and Metrology.
The prospective Russian clients of the prominent traders in the equipment designed to be employed in the chlor-alkali industry usually suggest that the traders should undergo the voluntary certification procedure under system RusChlorCert followed by issuance of the corresponding certificate of conformance, which the traders usually do.
As of now RusChlor has duly drawn up in excess of 50 certificates of conformance.
Entering the World Chlor-Alkali Family
Processes of the industrialized commercial manufacturing of chlorine, caustic soda, and chlorine derivatives are rated among the most dangerous ones within the world chemical industry. The situation is further aggravated by that the chlor-alkali industry still uses asbestos and even mercury. The damage caused by pollution of the environment by either substance is difficult even to assess. This is why the so called “Chlorine World” did unite sequentially into “families” first locally i. e., into regional Chlor-Alkali Associations and then globally i. e., into World Chlorine Council (WCC) the latter being accomplished out of the aim to facilitate the process of solving the global problems of the industry.
Among other things WCC has been soliciting for the global chlor-alkali industry’s interests at various international fora and organizations. It is worth noticing in this connection that the overwhelming majority of the national associations of the chlor-alkali industry are members in WCC.
Quite in line with the abovesaid, Association “RusChlor” was ceremonially admitted to the membership in WCC in 2012, shortly after which the Executive Director of RusChlor has been coopted into the membership in the Management Committee of WCC. Such a status acquired by RusChlor makes it possible for it to access to all the informational resources and normative-technical documents of both WCC itself and all its members including Euro Chlor and US Chlorine Institute. It is worth noticing in this connection that the latter two have gathered huge and priceless experience in safe production of chlorine. RusChlor has also acquired the ability to discuss at will various issues with the specialists of foreign countries.
Since the very day of its coming into the being RusChlor has been using all the noticeable national environments, playgrounds, communicational platforms, etc. for both staging the meaningful discussions of the problems faced by the Russian chlor-alkali industry in its forward development and protecting the interests of the industry. In lobbying the solutions for the problems faced by the industry Association “RusChlor” leans heavily on the advantages of its being a member in Russian Chemists Union, Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Russian Federation as well as of its regular participation in sessions of the Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP), Science and Engineering Board of ROSTEKHNADZOR and Expert Chemical Council of the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS).
Association “RusChlor" is also used to staging annually in Moscow the International Technology Symposiums so that both the top managers and practicizing specialists of the RusChlor member-companies would have the opportunity to exchange with their experience and draw on the latest achievements of the global chlor-alkali industry.
From time to time Association “RusChlor” arranges for the industry specialists the introductory visits to the most prominent foreign productive facilities such that manufacture either chlorine or the equipment for the electrolytic production of chlorine including those residing in Europe, the US, China, India, and South America.
In addition to protecting and representing the Russian chlor-alkali industry RusChlor provides to the maximal possible extent both the industry and the general public with the informational, communicational, and research services. In so doing we place emphasis on the sane and responsible scientific-and-technological projects so that they would be used in heightening the standards of safety in regard to both the production process and ecology.