Publications

There have been several acetylene cylinder blow-down fire incidents when cylinders have been vented in the yard. These incidents have the potential for operators to be seriously burnt or for an explosion to occur following an uncontrolled release of acetylene. This document has been prepared to give guidance on the safe blow-down of acetylene cylinders and bundles.

This publication is intended to give a broad overview of potentially hazardous situations and their mitigation associated with the handling and use of medical oxygen by clinical and non-clinical health care personnel outside of the home care setting.

It is common practice for cryogenic transport tanks to be filled at many locations. These locations may be at their own or a competitor’s production site and in a number of different countries. Most companies had equipped their transport tanks and filling stations with their own coupling systems. These systems were different, within the same company and in different countries. As a consequence, many adapters were in use to allow transport tanks from one company to fill at another site. These had to be made available at the filling stations and required a significant effort to control and use them safely. The use of a standardised filling coupling system, by all cryogenic gas companies, on transport tanks and at filling stations has avoided the requirement to use adapters and has improved safety. After the initial introduction of the EIGA coupling, some problems were identified by the European gas industry (see EIGA Training Package TP06) which was solved by increasing the length of the code ring and the wall thickness of the nut. The drawings included within this publication are the latest revision.

This publication provides guidelines to ensure that hazards inherent of pressure tests are mitigated, risks are managed and exposure to personnel and public is limited. It provides guidelines for managing and planning pressure tests (leak tests and proof tests) of field-installed process piping. This includes all operations necessary for planning, preparation, pressure test of the piping, depressurisation, and restoring the system back to service.

Regulation (EC) No 1935/2004 on materials and articles intended to come into contact with food has provided to the EU Member States a common regulation on the safety characteristics that materials and objects intended to come into contact directly or indirectly with foodstuffs. According to the Regulation 1935/2004 the Food Contact Materials (FCMs) shall be manufactured in compliance with Reg (EC) No 2023/2006, on good manufacturing practice for materials and articles intended to come into contact with food so that, under normal or foreseeable conditions of use, they do not transfer their constituents to food in quantities which could: • endanger human health; • bring about an unacceptable change in the composition of the food; or • bring about a deterioration in the organoleptic characteristics thereof. Regulation (EC) No 178/2002 laying down the general principles and requirements of food law, establishing the European Food Safety Authority and laying down procedures in matters of food safety defined food additives (and ingredient) as foodstuff and in this approach, gases used as food additives shall be in compliance with the same regulation and legislation applicable to foodstuff and, consequently also to the Regulation 1935/2004. In consequence, gas companies shall focus on the conformity of the material in contact with the food additive gases during their production, storage but also in all the supply chain till the point of use.

The concept of safety critical elements was introduced in the UK oil and gas sector by the legislation enacted following the Piper Alpha disaster in 1988. After this, the concept has been extended to the rest of process industries, including industrial gases. A common practice to all process industries is that they manage the safety of their operations using Risk Based Process Safety Management Systems. The main objective of Risk Based Process Safety Management Systems is preventing the occurrence of Process Safety Incidents (PSI). Safety critical devices (SCD) are defined specifically as instruments and equipment which mitigate against a safety risk, i.e. not a business or environmental risk. The safety risk should be credible in terms of probable likelihood and potential consequence. The purpose of this publication is to provide industry guidance for the identification and management of SCD within the industrial and medical gases industry.

This publication provides an accessible overview of current commercially available industrial hydrogen production methods

This publication provides recommended best practices and standardised procedures for personnel using hydrogen supply systems. The practices and procedures are limited to bulk gaseous and cryogenic liquid hydrogen and do not address non-bulk (cylinders) supply systems. This publication addresses processes for commissioning, filling, decommissioning, maintaining, and operating hydrogen supply systems.

Whilst at European level there is no specific legislation addressing lone working, the general obligations on employers under the worker safety directive, requiring task risk assessment, should consider the lone working aspects. This publication describes and discusses tasks specific to the industrial and medical gases industry and how they can be performed safely, by a lone worker.

Manual handling is an important issue for the industrial gases sector (including areas such as medical, food etc.). Many activities of the industrial gases industry involve manual effort which have the potential to cause harm if not properly managed. Manual handling related injuries are a major cause of lost workdays and occupational illness. National or local regulations shall be considered separately. Applicable national and local regulations shall be applied in conjunction with this document. They shall be followed as a minimum.