There was held forum "Industry and Fire Safety / Security” on February 28, this year in Moscow. The event had been arranged by Russian Union of Industrialists and Entrepreneurs (RSPP). The agenda has been hinged on the government – business cooperation in tackling the problems felt in providing for both the industrial and fire safety / security. Executive Director of Association “RusChlor” Mr. Boris Yagud has participated in the forum proceedings.

The forum started its work from stressing that technological safety / security were getting the condition to be obligatorily met by a successful business in the Russian Federation. That was also said to have made it of a key importance that the state regulation should meet interests of all the actors on the market. The forum also stressed that the said condition had become achievable owing mostly to the fruitful interactions between the business, on the one hand, and the industry – specific regulators, i. e., Federal Service for Ecological, Technological, and Nuclear Supervision (ROSTEKHNADZOR) and Ministry for Civil Defence, Emergencies, and Disaster Relief of the Russian Federation, on the other. It’s everybody’s understanding that this week the meeting point for the two aforementioned sides’ dialogue has been made for by that very forum “Industry and Fire Safety / Security”.

The most significant statements are thought to have been made at the forum by the following representatives of the two aforesaid Parties (i. e., Business and State Supervision):

• Mr. Alexander Dyukov (Chairman of the Management Board of Open Joint-Stock Company "Gazprom Neft”, Head of the RSPP Industrial Safety Committee) and;
• Mr. Alexander Demin (State Secretary, Deputy Head of ROSTEKHNADZOR)

The pivoting theme for the discussion at the forum has turned out to become the various aspects to look at both improving the Federal Law "On Industrial Safety of Hazardous Production Facilities” and subordinate legislation in the said area.

In particular, the forum attendees have stressed in this connection that under the current business environment the Russian production facilities are facing the new unexpected both threats and challenges. On the other hand though, there has been also underlined at the forum that the current situation of the industry is worth looking on as an additional incentive to join the efforts of the government and business that are aimed at creating a friendly environment for development of the domestic industry including heightening its performance in safety, security, and efficiency of the production processes.

There have been considered in due details both the already developed by Federal Service for Ecological, Technological, and Nuclear Supervision of the Russian Federation (ROSTEKHNADZOR) changes to be presumably introduced into the Federal legislation and new initiatives by the business community aimed at improving both the safety and security for the works performed at the hazardous production facilities.

As the forum attendees put it the said amendments to the legislation had already eased running the business. In elaborating the matter a little further there has been featured as an example of the abovementioned novices such a mechanism at the forum that allows the facilities to justify the state of safety of their technological processes even at the absence of the applicable regulatory requirements or if they do exist, under impossibility to fulfill those requirements. That is done under that mechanism by simply conducting the risk evaluation. The point is that such an approach stimulates applying the new technologies which puts it more and more in demand. It is worth noticing in this connection that there has been issued in excess of 2000 expert opinions linked to the Safety Assessment Reports. As Mr. Dyukov has put it, the output of the said approach use is currently estimated by hundreds of millions of roubles.

In particular, Mr.Dyukov has argued: “The approach that is currently being increasingly taken is at its core a risk-oriented one and the Safety Assessment Reports worked out under it allow even now to introduce the new both technologies and engineering decisions into practice, which lessens considerably the companies’ investment outlay. Depending on dimensions of the sites and the peculiarities of the territories that are earmarked for the new production facilities and plants owing to the discussed approach the said dimensions are getting less as the consumption of the construction materials does and the general effectiveness of use of resources is also going up. Without any “buts” the business sees the worthiness of the mechanism being discussed and many have already started to use it”.

Meanwhile the work in the field of industrial safety / security is still going on. There is also a remote control mechanism among the novices adopted recently. The mechanism makes it possible to heighten the industrial safety / security indices while lowering the business bnurden. Other legal initiatives are also being developed.

One of these initiatives that are considered the such of huge importance has become the implementation of so called “regulatory guillotine”, which implies either cancellation or thorough revision of the obsolete normative requirements that hamper functioning of the business. There have been recently adopted as few as just 100 new normative legal acts in substitution of 400+ of the cancelled old ones under the reform here.

“This is unequivocally such an efficient mechanism that is both important and useful. I stress that it is important for the business in the first place. As to the so called “bettering” the foundational requirements that are really providing for the industrial safety / security, they have remained the same at their core while becoming more understandable and clear cut so to say Suffice it to notice in this connection that the amount of the unnecessary bureaucratic work that the business used to perform as well as the amount of the general notorious “paper” work used to be performed by both the parties have been radically decreased, which in turn has made it possible for us to both shorten the necessary documents’ waiting time and simplify the functioning of the business”, - argued Chair of the Management Board of Open Joint-Stock Company "Gazprom Neft", Head of the RSPP's Committee on the Industrial Safety / Security Mr. Alexander Dyukov.